Eduardo Mendieta on "The Philosophical Animal"

The Philosophical Animal: On Zoopoetics and Interspecies Cosmopolitanism

by Eduardo Mendieta

(State University of New York Press, 2024)

266 pages 

[Open access]

Description

Humans are animals who fictionalize other animals to asse their "humanness." We are philosophical animals who philosophize about our humanity by projecting images onto a mirror about other animals. Spanning literature, philosophy, and ethics, the thread uniting The Philosophical Animal is the bestiary and how it continues to inform our imaginings. Beginning with an exploration of animals and women in the literary work of Coetzee, famous for his book on The Lives of Animals, Eduardo Mendieta then dives into the genre of bestiaries in order to investigate the relation between humanity and animality. From there he approaches the works of Derrida and Habermas from the standpoint of genetic engineering and animal studies. While we have intensely modified many species genetically, we have not done this to ourselves. Why? Finally, Mendieta deals with the political and ethical implications suggested by this question before ending on an autobiographical note about growing up around so-called animals, and in particular horses.

Contents [Open access]

Introduction: The Poetic Species 

I. Ceasing to Be Animal

1: Zoopoetics: Coetzee’s Animals and Philosophy

2: Political Bestiary: On the Uses of Violence

3: Heidegger’s Bestiary: The Speechless and  Unhistorical Animal

II. Not Yet Human

4: Habermas on Human Cloning: The Debate on the  Future of the Species

5: Communicative Freedom and Genetic Engineering 

6: We Have Never Been Human, or How We Lost  Our Humanity

III. Toward a Companion Species Ethics

7: Animal Is to Kantianism As Jew Is to Fascism:  Adorno’s Bestiary 

8: Interspecies Cosmopolitanism

9: Bestiaries of Extinction: Anthropodicy or Anthropohippology

Addendum to “Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie”

Jürgen Habermas made numerous corrections and revisions in the second edition of his Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie (2019/2022).

On HabermasForum, I have uploaded a list of the corrections and revisions I have identified:

Addendum to Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie.

Axel Honneth on moral progress (video)

On December 16, Axel Honneth held the Jan Patočka Memorial Lecture 2024 in Vienna: 

The Standpoint of Moral Progress. A Defence in Kantian Spirit (video)  

0:07: Lecture

1:02: Q&As

Abstract: "Today, the idea that there has been moral progress in human history is highly controversial and contested. Many intellectuals from various camps consider it impossible, if not immoral, to claim that there has been anything in the historical past that can be called an improvement in moral attitudes and the application of moral principles. The reasons for this strong rejection of the idea of moral progress are either empirical or normative: either it is claimed that the historical facts strongly contradict such progress, or that there is no sufficiently impartial perspective from which to judge such progress. This lecture aimed to show that both objections can be refuted if one has a proper understanding of the perspective from which to claim a past process of moral progress; this perspective must not only be constantly self-critical, but must also construct the history to be told about the moral past very differently from all previous such narratives."

New book: Nancy Fraser and Politics

Nancy Fraser and Politics

by Marjan Ivković & Zona Zarić

(Edinburgh University Press, 2024)

248 pages

Description

"Nancy Fraser and Politics" is a systematic reconstruction of the work of Nancy Fraser, a key contemporary figure of critical theory and socialist feminism. It argues that Fraser's critical theory is a powerful and sophisticated analytical prism for diagnosing the breadth of empirical variety and depth of structural causality of injustice and domination in the ‘actually existing’ capitalist democracies of today, and for informing and inspiring numerous political movements struggling for societal emancipation.

Ivković and Zarić demonstrate that a key aspect of Fraser’s critical theory - her structural approach to domination which traces the manifold empirical injustices to a common root cause - is a thread that runs through her entire opus.

Contents [preview]

Introduction: Nancy Fraser as a Critical Theorist [pdf]

1. The Theoretical and Political Coordinates of Fraser’s Perspective

2. Fraser’s Theory of Capitalism

3. The Complexity of Liberation: Fraser’s Feminism

4. The Normative Weight of Politics: Fraser’s Theory of the Public Sphere

5. Fraser on Emancipation as a Political Process and Institutional Form

Conclusion

Ingeborg Maus (1937-2024)

Obituaries for Ingeborg Maus:

* Peter Niesen - "Zum Tod von Ingeborg Maus – Rousseau und Kant als Kronzeugen" (Frankfurter Rundschau, 16-12-2024)

* Oliver Eberl - "Den Motorradhelm stets im Büro" (taz, 16-12-2024)

* Rainer Forst - "Volkssouveränität radikal gedacht" (Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main, 17-12-2024) = "Was leistet eine Justiz als gesellschaftliches Über-Ich?" (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 18-12-2024)

* David Fischer - "Verteidigung der Rechtsform" (Junge Welt, 19-12-2024)

Philip Pettit on Rainer Forst

Philip Pettit has uploaded a paper on Rainer Forst:

"On Rainer Forst's Kantian Republicanism" [pdf]

Originally published in German in Mahmoud Bassiouni et al. (eds.), Die Macht der Rechtfertigung. Perspektiven einer kritischen Theorie der Gerechtigkeit (Suhrkamp Verlag, 2024), pp. 517-530.

Herbert Schnädelbach (1936-2024)

Obituaries for Herbert Schnädelbach:

Geert Keil - "Man braucht viel Vernunft, um sie zu kritisieren" (Frankfurter Rundschau, 11-11-2014)

Christian Geyer - "Wer nichts behauptet und nichts vertritt, ist immer fein raus" (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 12-11-2014)

Dirk Knipphals - "Philosoph Herbert Schnädelbach gestorben" (taz, 12-11-2024)

AI system named "Habermas Machine"

Michael Henry Tessler et al. have published a research article titled, "AI Can Help Humans Find Common Ground in Democratic Deliberation", in Science (386, eadq2852, 2024).

In the abstract, they state: 

"This research demonstrates the potential of AI to enhance collective deliberation by finding common ground among discussants with diverse views. The AI-mediated approach is time-efficient, fair, scalable, and outperforms human mediators on key dimensions. Rather than simply appealing to the majority, the Habermas Machine prominently incorporated dissenting voices into the group statements. AI-assisted deliberation is not without its risks, however; to ensure fair and inclusive debate, steps must be taken to ensure users are representative of the target population and are prepared to contribute in good faith. Under such conditions, AI may be leveraged to improve collective decision-making across various domains, from contract negotiations and conflict resolution to political discussions and citizens’ assemblies. The Habermas Machine offers a promising tool for finding agreement and promoting collective action in an increasingly divided world."

[* The human mediators that this AI system outperforms are not skilled professionals, but randomly selected participants.]

They also write: "We call this AI system the ‘Habermas Machine’ (HM), after the theorist Jürgen Habermas, who proposed that when rational people deliberate under idealized conditions, agreement will emerge in the public sphere," referencing J. Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume One: Reason and the Rationalization of Society (Beacon Press, 1981) [no page reference]. 

However, this book by Jürgen Habermas (published by Beacon Press in 1984) does not contain such a statement, nor does any other work by Habermas. It appears they may have named an AI system after a "theorist" whose work they have not directly consulted, drawing instead on general inspiration.

(1) Habermas does not believe that an "ideal discussion" on political issues will necessarily lead to agreement. Conflicts of interest or values will often need to be resolved by attempting to reach a fair compromise or through a majority decision. (And, of course, there are also conflicts where no solution can be found that is acceptable to all parties.) 

[Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere and Deliberative Politics, 2023, p. 68, 89-93; Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, 1996, pp. 165-167, 179].

(2) Habermas also argues that political agreement (or compromise) achievable in a deliberative democracy is not formed or reached in the public sphere but rather within political institutions—particularly in parliament. In the public sphere, outside these institutions, there is an exchange of opinions that is open, competitive, anarchistic, and ongoing: a continuous dissent. The deliberation in the public sphere results in a more or less informed pluralism of opinions.

[Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere and Deliberative Politics, 2023, pp. 12-21, 70-71; Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, 1996, pp. 185f, 371f].

(3) In the book by Habermas, which the research article refers to, The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume One, Habermas discusses a more philosophically technical concept of "discourse", distinguishing between three forms: theoretical discourses about the truth of propositions, practical discourses about the rightness of moral norms, and explicative discourses about the comprehensibility of symbolic expressions. Here, Habermas writes: 

"Only in theoretical, practical, and explicative discourse do the participants have to start from the (often counterfactual) presupposition that the conditions for an ideal speech situation are satisfied to a sufficient degree of approximation. I shall speak of “discourse” only when the meaning of the problematic validity claim conceptually forces participants to suppose that a rationally motivated agreement could in principle be achieved, whereby the phrase “in principle” expresses the idealizing proviso: if only the argumentation could be conducted openly enough and continued long enough." (p. 42, my emphasis).

That said, it is an interesting study.

Seyla Benhabib's 2024 Adorno Prize lecture

On September 11, 2024, Seyla Benhabib was awarded the Theodor W. Adorno Prize in Frankfurt, and she gave on that occasion a lecture on Adorno. An abridged English version of her lecture is now available at the Boston Review:

Against False Universals

Excerpts:

"Yet if the contemporary climate change crisis and the new Earth sciences lend a new relevance and poignancy to Adorno’s rejection of emancipation through social labor, and if, as I have argued, for Adorno, the task of philosophy is not to build totalizing systems but to engage in materialist interpretation and reveal fragmentary constellations, where does this leave social philosophy? As is well known, Adorno turns to aesthetic theory and the concept of the “naturally beautiful,” viewing it as an allegory and a cipher which intimates the utopian longing toward the non-identical. It would be too simple to criticize Adorno, as is often done, for turning away from the political and for reducing the emancipatory claims of critical theory to aesthetics. Adorno, who more consistently than other critical theorists saw the deficiencies of the Marxist paradigm, could offer no alternative to it. Yet there are elements in Adorno’s thinking, such as his critique of false universals and of identitarian thought, which may lead us beyond what Albrecht Wellmer, in his Adorno Prize lecture, called “the homelessness of the political” in Adorno’s theory." (....)

"The capacity for enlarged thought has atrophied in contemporary liberal democracies. Some will characterize the concept of an enlarged mentality as being based on a naïve humanism, and even on an arrogant humanitarianism which believes that enlightened liberal individuals can really understand the miseries of the homeless, the marginalized, the impoverished elderly, the sexually marginal. Others will argue that this concept is imperialistic in that its source is Kantian cosmopolitanism in the eighteenth century. (....)  Still others will argue that only members of affected groups, defined by race, ethnicity, sexuality, or gender, can take certain standpoints. Intergroup empathy is met with suspicion." (....)

"Surely these observations about democratic culture must be supplemented by a materialist critique. Adorno would be the first to point out that a society in which inequality grows, human work becomes increasingly degraded, and life in general becomes more precarious is not one in which we can lead a good life. Nor is such a situation compatible with sustaining a democratic culture. The dominance of the false universals of our time and the rigidity and bitterness of struggles over identitarian categories are surely a manifestation of economic injustice as well. The dominance of the false universals of our time and the rigidity and bitterness of struggles over identitarian categories are surely a manifestation of economic injustice as well. Having been forced together through the mind-numbing speed of financial capital and money markets, and new technologies, our interdependence as peoples of this world is only generating confusions, conflicts, and resentments. An interdependent humanity has become what Adorno called “a negative universal”—an interdependence which results from the unintended consequences of our actions but not our intentions. To transform the negative universality of our current condition into a true universality of non-identitarian solidarity is Adorno’s legacy for us."

Peter Niesen on Habermas's new book

Prof. Peter Niesen (Hamburg) reviews Jürgen Habermas's in-depth conversation with Stefan Müller-Doohm and Roman Yos in "Es musste etwas besser werden" (Suhrkamp, 2024):

"Habermas’ ursprüngliche Einsicht" (Soziopolis, October 15, 2024)

Interview with Stefan Müller-Doohm & Roman Yos

In the "Frankfurter Rundschau" (October 9, 2024), an interview with Stefan Müller-Doohm and Roman Yos on their in-depth conversation with Habermas in "Es musste etwas besser werden..." (Suhrkamp, 2024):

"Was aus der Demokratie wird, ist eine Hauptsorge von Habermas" 

Habermas on Siegfried Unseld

Jürgen Habermas on Siegfried Unseld in "Die Zeit" (September 26, 2024):

"Danke, mein Freund. Eine persönliche Erinnerung an den legendären Suhrkamp-Chef Siegfried Unseld, der jetzt 100 Jahre alt geworden wäre"

Excerpt:

"Diese letzte Gelegenheit möchte ich nutzen, um Siegfried dafür zu danken, mir die Welt seines Verlages von innen geöffnet zu haben – um nicht bloß der Leser jener Bücher und jener Autoren zu bleiben, die in den Fünfziger- und Sechzigerjahren begannen, das Profil der "Suhrkampkultur" mitzubestimmen. Zum Glück kam es anders.

Im Frühsommer 1963 meldeten sich Siegfried und Hilde Unseld bei uns in Heidelberg zum Kaffee an. Schon bei diesem ersten Treffen war Siegfried ganz er selbst – der zielstrebige, zunächst um Mitarbeit, fast schon um Freundschaft werbende Unternehmer. Es sollte um die Gründung der Theorie-Reihe im Verlag gehen. Bald konzentrierte sich die Unterhaltung auf die Auswahl der Herausgeber, zu denen ich gehören sollte. [.....] Auf die Frage nach dem Motiv erklärte uns Unseld damals, bei der Prüfung der Umsätze der seinerzeit aus der Taufe gehobenen edition suhrkamp habe er entdeckt, dass sich nicht nur Brecht und Hesse, wie zu erwarten, glänzend verkauften, sondern auch Wittgensteins Tractatus logico-philosophicus. Es waren also die Verkaufszahlen eines im Fach renommierten und offenbar großartigen, "aber für ein breiteres Publikum doch völlig unlesbaren Textes" eines weltberühmten Philosophen, die den Verleger auf seine Idee gebracht hatten. Rückblickend erkennt man in diesem Motiv die zeitgeschichtliche Sensibilität für Kehrtwenden der kulturellen Szene, die den erfolgreichen Verleger auszeichnet. Siegfried hatte eine Nase für die alsbald ausbrechende "Theorieleidenschaft" der jüngeren Generation, die damals erst in der Luft lag.

Das Gespür des Verlegers für einen politisch-kulturellen Wetterwechsel allein erklärt freilich nicht den Erfolg der edition suhrkamp. Zwar ist diese Reihe schließlich vom Verleger sogar gegen den Rat der beratenden Gruppe realisiert worden, aber ohne die vorangehenden Diskussionen mit diesen engsten Autoren wäre daraus nicht der Plan für jene unnachahmliche Mischung aus literarischen, wissenschaftlichen und politischen Titeln entstanden, die für Jahrzehnte eine richtungsweisende, ja tendenziöse Kraft entfalten sollte. Vielleicht wäre das auch nicht ohne den seriellen Regenbogen der Einbandgestaltung von Willy Fleckhaus gelungen; aber was Siegfried Unseld als Verleger spezifisch auszeichnet, ist die an diesem Beispiel sichtbare inhaltliche Kooperation mit den wichtigsten Autoren seiner Generation. Trotz aller persönlichen Konkurrenzen hatte die gemeinsame Beratung ein Gefühl der Zusammengehörigkeit gestiftet. Er hatte ihnen das Bewusstsein gegeben, am selben Strick zu ziehen. Es ging nicht länger nur um die eigenen Bücher, sondern um die Projekte – und die Sorge um die wirtschaftliche Stabilität – "ihres" Verlages. Das verriet sich auch in dem nicht abreißenden Geräusch ihrer leidenschaftlichen Kritik am Verleger – sobald einer dieser Autoren den anderen traf, erregte man sich auch über die strittigen Verlagsangelegenheiten."

Note: Siegfried Unseld's "Betriebstagebuch" 1970-1993 (which he himself titled "Chronik") is now available online at this new website: "Siegfried Unseld Chronik". The records primarily concern Unseld's relationships with the authors at Suhrkamp Verlag, including Jürgen Habermas. Habermas had several conflicts with Unseld and Suhrkamp Verlag, where he threatened to leave the publishing house. The most important conflicts have already been described in Peter Michalzik's Unseld. Eine Biographie (Goldmann, 2nd ed. 2003), and in Stefan Müller-Doohm’s  Habermas. Eine Biographie (Suhrkamp Verlag, 2014; English: Habermas. A Biography, Polity 2016).