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137Language, work and hermeneuticsIn Gadamer’s Hermeneutics and the Art of Conversation, Lit Verlag. pp. 201-220. 2011.The essay reflects on Gadamer’s ambiguous legacy for the philosophy of work. On the one hand, there are times when Gadamer reproduces the problematic distinction between language and labor which short-circuits the very idea of a hermeneutics of work. This is particularly evident in Gadamer’s reflections on technique and craftsmanship in the central sections of Truth and Method, as well as in his descriptions of the “art” of dialogue and the tasks of hermeneutics that separate them emphatically t…Read more
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5Between Philosophical Anthropology and Phenomenology: on Paul Ricoeur’s Philosophy of WorkRevue Internationale de Philosophie 278 (4): 513-534. 2017.The paper is a critical analysis of Paul Ricoeur’s philosophy of work as it is formulated in a number of essays from the 1950s and 60s. It begins with a reconstruction of the central theses advanced in ‘Travail et parole’ (1953) and related texts, where Ricoeur sought to outline a philosophical anthropology in which work is given its due. To give work its due, from an anthropological standpoint, is to see it as limited by counter-concept of language, according to Ricoeur. The paper then argues t…Read more
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Social Inequality Today (edited book). 2003.Proceedings of the first annual conference of the Centre for Research on Social Inclusion at Macquarie University.
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82Perspectives on the philosophy of Charles Taylor (edited book)Acta Philosophical Fennica. 2002.The essays in this volume offer a range of new perspectives on Charles Taylor's philosophy. Part one addresses key metaphilosophical themes such as the role of transcendental arguments, the critique of representationalism, and the dialectics of Enlightenment. Part two critically examines Taylor's views on personhood, selfhood and interpersonal recognition. Part three discusses issues in Taylor's moral and political theory, including the nature of his moral realism, his theory of modernity, and h…Read more
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9Social power and the domination of natureHistory of the Human Sciences 6 (3): 101-110. 1993.Axel Honneth, The Critique of Power: Reflective Stages in a Critical Social Theory, translated by Kenneth Baynes. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press, 1991. £24.75, xxxii + 340 pp., 0 262 08202 0
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10Arendt’s anti-humanism of labourEuropean Journal of Social Theory 22 (2): 175-190. 2019.The aim of this article is to situate Arendt’s account of labour as a critical response to humanisms of labour, or put otherwise, to situate it as an anti-humanism of labour. It compares Arendt’s account of labour with that of the most prominent humanist theorist of labour at the time of the composition of The Human Condition: Georges Friedmann. Arendt’s and Friedmann’s accounts of labour are compared specifically with respect to the range of capacities, social relations, and possibilities of fu…Read more
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1Review of Reason in Philosophy by Robert Brandom (review)The Philosophers' Magazine 49 112-113. 2010.
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327Social freedom as the purpose of the modern universityPhilosophy and Theory in Higher Education 4 (1): 1-23. 2022.What is the fundamental purpose that justifies the existence of the modern university? The answer proposed in this essay is the promotion of social freedom. The essay begins by distinguishing social freedom from negative freedom and reflective freedom along the lines proposed by other theorists of social freedom, such as Frederick Neuhouser and Axel Honneth. After noting the need for a more developed account of the university than has so far been provided by these other theorists, the essay anal…Read more
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Punk as PraxisIn Joshua Heter & Richard Greene (eds.), Punk Rock and Philosophy: Research and Destroy, Carus Books. pp. 29-36. 2022.The chapter contrasts views of Punk as a playlist and an attitude with one based on a kind of action: praxis! Can be downloaded from my Website.
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Hermeneutics as a Metaphilosophy and a Philosophy of WorkIn Michiel Meijer (ed.), Updating the interpretive turn: new arguments in hermeneutics, Routledge. 2023.The ‘interpretive turn’ in twentieth-century hermeneutics rests on the general ontological claim that human reality is the reality of self-interpreting animals. But under the circumstances of advanced modernity, there are aspects of human life, or spheres of human thought and action, that appear to contradict this general thesis, in that they do not present themselves as the doings of self-interpreting animals at all. Of these, the predominant one is the sphere of work or 'productive' action. In…Read more
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177Taylor and Liberal NaturalismIn Mario De Caro & David Macarthur (eds.), The Handbook of Liberal Naturalism, Routledge. 2022.
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Review of Self-Consciousness and the Critique of the Subject by Simon Lumsden (review)Critical Horizons 16 309-310. 2015.
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Recognition and MulticulturalismIn and M. Quante H. Ikaheimo L. Siep (ed.), Handbuch Anerkennung. pp. 483-490. 2021.
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287A Culture of Egotism: Rorty and Higher EducationIn A. Mahon (ed.), The Promise of the University: Reclaiming Humanity, Humility and Hope. pp. 55-66. 2021.This chapter takes a critical look at universities from the perspective of the neopragmatist philosophy of education outlined by Richard Rorty. The chapter begins with a discussion of Rorty’s view of the ends that educational institutions properly serve in a liberal democracy. It then considers the kind of culture that Rorty takes to be conducive to those ends and the kind that is antithetical to them. Rorty sometimes characterizes the latter as a culture of ‘egotism’. After describing the main …Read more
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242Die Armut unserer Freiheit. Axel Honneth Suhrkamp Verlag, 2020 (review)Constellations (Online first): 507-509. 2022.Constellations, EarlyView.
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812. Hans-Georg GadamerIn Jon Simons (ed.), From Kant to Lévi-Strauss the Background to Contemporary Critical Theory, Edinburgh University Press. pp. 181-196. 2002.
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17Interpretation for Emancipation: Taylor as a Critical TheoristInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 29 (5): 673-688. 2021.The paper argues that we should read Taylor’s philosophy as a philosophy of liberation and that it is as a philosopher of liberation that Taylor distinguishes himself as a critical theorist. It beg...
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12Schwerpunkt: Arbeit nach dem LiberalismusDeutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 60 (4): 509-512. 2012.Introduction to themed papers on 'Work after Liberalism'
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40Alasdair MacIntyre, universities, and the common goodEuropean Journal of Philosophy 30 (3): 1173-1186. 2021.Best known as a political philosopher, Alasdair MacIntyre is also a critic of the modern university. The paper examines the grounds of MacIntyre's criticism of modern universities; it offers an assessment of the philosophical debate occasioned by MacIntyre's writings on the topic; and it proposes a way of taking this debate forward. The debate is shown to be centred around three objections to MacIntyre's normative idea of the university: that it is overly intellectualist, parochial, and moralizi…Read more
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15Multiculturalism and RecognitionIn Ludwig Siep, Heikki Ikäheimo & Michael Quante (eds.), Handbuch Anerkennung, Springer Vs. 2018.
Storrs, Connecticut, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Social and Political Philosophy |
Critical Theory |
Hermeneutics |
Richard Rorty |