Quietist Speech and the Phenomenological Sign

Ludwig Wittgenstein offers a novel and cutting criticism of philosophical realism. The ‘quietist’ critique finds fault with the discipline’s misuse of concepts outside of their relevant ‘language games.’ Instead, it calls for a philosophy that forgoes positing any form of explanation and, in lieu of doing so, limits itself to pure description. In practice, this is often taken up by withholding any positive theses about the ontological ‘state of things,’ and simply stating things ‘as they are.’ In this essay, Mikel van Dyken extends upon John McDowell’s and Paul Davies’ proposals of Immanuel Kant and Edmund Husserl, respectively, as philosophers who manage to avoid the quietist critique. Van Dyken argues that while Kant and Husserl are largely successful in constructing a purely descriptive philosophy, they each make certain dogmatic explanatory assertions. Van Dyken then proposes Merleau-Ponty’s analysis of the lived experience of the world as a productive philosophy which succeeds in avoiding the quietist critique.

Faith: Eschatological Hope and the Absurd

Kierkegaard’s treatment of the Akedah in Fear and Trembling has caused consistent confusion for ethicists and existentialists alike. In this essay, James Patterson advocates a reconsideration of the universal and absolute in Kierkegaard’s theory, and a subsequent criticism of 20th century responses. The inner workings of Abraham’s mind are a mystery to us, but we must take Kierkegaard’s attempt to unravel this display of faith seriously. Readings posited by Levinas and Derrida show compelling responses to Kierkegaard, however, they ultimately fail to realise the significance of eschatological hope – a state of mind that embraces a teleology founded on absurdity. Viewing faith as a function of eschatological hope is necessary to fully appreciate how belief sits not alongside, but above ethics.

When Freedom Learns to Bend: Adaptive Preferences and the Politics of Autonomy

This article examines the relationship between autonomy and adaptive preferences, arguing that prevailing philosophical accounts, such as those of Serene Khader and Natalie Stoljar, treat adaptive preferences too superficially. Standard approaches, such as those advanced by Khader and Stoljar, tend to frame adaptive preferences as either impairments of autonomy or as incompatible with basic flourishing. Drawing on cases of intimate partner violence (IPV), Sithara-Anne French exposes a key oversight in these models: the failure to account for the complex interplay between oppression, internalised stereotypes, and preference formation. While Stoljar’s psychological processes model recognises how oppressive contexts undermine critical reflection, French argues that it does not fully address the deep psychological harms such contexts produce. Similarly, she contends that Khader’s focus on expanding options overlooks how internalised oppression can obscure the perceived value of alternatives. French proposes an expanded framework for understanding adaptive preferences, one that recognises the unconscious mechanisms by which oppression shapes desires, while preserving respect for victims’ agency.

e-Withering: A Diachronic Analysis of Auratic Art in the New Age of Film and Livestreaming

In this essay, Xavier Woodgate argues against Walter Benjamin’s claim that film, as a mechanically reproduced work of art, no longer possesses an ‘aura’, and that, rather, having left the spotlight of contemporaneity that Benjamin thought of film in, it has achieved a historicity that has established an ‘aura’ for film. However, Woodgate does not eschew Benjamin’s claim against the loss of aura in mechanically reproduced works entirely, and he maintains it against some contemporary developments in the mechanical reproduction of art through a diachronic analysis of the evolution of film into livestreaming.

Conspiratorial Thinking: Can Alternative Facts be a Philosophical Position?

Science, and the epistemological position of scientific realism, hold a privileged position in culture, politics, and philosophy. The proliferation of science-oriented conspiracy theories, appears initially, to be a critique of this privileged position, akin in many ways to philosophical critiques, found in scepticism and quietism. However, conspiracy thinking critiques who holds privileged access to the external world, rather than there being access to a mind-independent world (scepticism), or the use of scientific thinking in philosophy (quietism). Victoria Lawson argues that science-based conspiracy theories, using Naomi Klein, are a political, not philosophical, critique of modern culture. Inside a given conspiracy-theorist denial claim – this scientific fact is incorrect – is a separate claim, that the scientist is ‘lying to them.’ This accusation of deceit is a denial that scientists are communicating to us, an accurate account of the world, which, we do feel unsettled by.

Extending Adorno: The Culture Industry, Literature, and Language

While the majority of Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer’s ‘The Culture Industry’ presents a diagnostic account of the culture industry’s institutionalising sameness as a by-product of modern capitalism, the final section undergoes a rapid and distinct turn towards linguistic analysis. In this essay, Melinda Herman argues that this shift in analytical target indicates a deeper relationship between the culture industry’s ubiquity and its effect on language – one that can be expanded upon to account for literature’s position in modern society. To do so, Herman extracts a holistic account of language under capitalism from ‘The Culture Industry’ and Adorno’s broader philosophy of language, arguing that the culture industry’s self-supporting sameness translates into a degradation of language’s meaning-making capacity. Words function representationally, designating things, not meaning. From this standpoint, Herman introduces an obscure essay by Adorno that ties literature’s formal function to its description of subjectively lived specificity. Herman concludes that this role is deeply problematised by hegemonic sameness that reduces the meaning-making capacity of language to a hollow representationalism at direct odds with its artistic function.

Are Women and the Poor Competent Voters? Active and Passive Citizens in a Kantian State

In this essay, Emma Fensom examines Immanuel Kant’s distinction between active and passive citizens within his rightful state. In particular, Fensom focuses on whether such distinction can justify denying suffrage to those deemed ‘dependent’, and thus passive within society. Ultimately, Fensom finds Kant’s distinction to be arbitrary and grounded in prejudice. Further, she argues that a Kantian state will never be able to create the necessary conditions for those deemed passive to become active, where it cannot be guaranteed that active citizens will always vote in accordance with the general will.

Contents: Issue 11

November 2023

The New Symbolic and How to Get There: Understanding Cixous’ Celebration of Libidinal Difference

In this paper, Conor Jedam interrogates Hélène Cixous’ work regarding écriture féminine and women’s libidinal difference. He engages with criticisms that raise concern that Cixous appeals to a feminine essence and works within the dominant patriarchal discourse. Ultimately, he argues that Cixous’ work ought to be read as a cultural critique and strategy for the construction of a new symbolic, which necessarily begins within patriarchy. He also raises concern about the accessibility of écriture féminine, as well as its reliance on notions of masculinity and femininity.

From Binary to Singularity: Monique Wittig’s The Lesbian Body and Queer Identities

For Monique Wittig, the political fight against hetero-patriarchal oppression requires work in writing to destroy the gendered language and concepts which justify and perpetuate this material reality. In this essay, Nicholas Scott explores the implications of Wittig’s project for queer identities, recognising that such subjects are often constructed with the language of gender. Rejecting a view that posits this as a tension, he argues instead that contemporary conceptions of queer subjectivities can be understood as a demountable bridge between the world Wittig diagnoses, and the one she wishes to create.

The Culture Industry: Fanaticism as Redemption

I present an argument for the capacity of fan-art (Fanfiction, visual art, etc.) to reclaim some cultural and creative autonomy from Adorno and Horkheimer’s vision of the culture industry. While never a total nor mainstream reclamation of art, I argue that fan-art proves that there is a desire in the masses to create meaning where there was none, for motives other than profit. I draw primarily on Adorno and Horkheimer, particularly “The Culture Industry,” alongside media scholar Henry Jenkins.

Kant and the Void: Towards a Post-Critical Ontology

Immanuel Kant argues in the Critique of Pure Reason that the formal possibility for synthetic a priori knowledge depends upon the distinction between appearances and things-in-themselves. In this essay, it will be argued that although Kant successfully resolves the problems implicit in the categories of classical metaphysics, his solution unnecessarily limits thought to appearance. To counter his claim, set theory will be put forward as a synthetic a priori knowledge irreducible to appearance.

Environment: Wilderness, Home, Commodity

By taking a reflective approach to her relationship with the environment, Mira Gibson intersects William Cronon’s article ‘The Trouble of Wilderness’ (1996) with Steven Vogel’s paper ‘Marx and Alienation from Nature’ (1988) to explore her relationship with the environment. Through this reflection, she investigates what she means by ‘environment’ and the implications of this on her ethical life. Then, she situates the possibility for environmental change within the social networks of labour.

Capital Punishment as a Categorical Contradiction of our Duty to Respect Other Humans

In this paper I argue that Immanuel Kant’s positions on the death penalty as a justified form of punishment and on universally owed respect are incompatible, both in practice during Kant’s lifetime, and conceptually. This contradiction is identified between concepts presented in two parts of Kant’s The Metaphysics of Morals, and while both sections have different focus areas within the broader field of ethics, their respective subject matter is intended to occur within the same universal system of philosophy. As such, identifying this incongruency in Kant’s system suggests that his concepts of either punishment or respect may not be adequately justified.

Kristeva and Lacan: The Maternal Semiotic and the Ethics of Subjectivity

This essay concerns Kristeva’s philosophical debt to Lacan. I argue that Kristeva’s contribution to psychoanalysis does not involve the wholesale rejection of Lacanian theory. I place specific emphasis on her notion of the maternal semiotic and relate it to Lacan’s notion of the symbolic. I then investigate how this forms the basis for Kristeva’s ideas related to feminist ethics, before addressing criticisms directed towards her purported essentialism.

Elegy for the Aura

By reading Benjamin alongside Proust, this essay argues that the loss of the aura has been of aesthetic detriment. Despite Benjamin’s exhortation, the political potential left in the aura’s absence has gone unrealised. The wonder of auratic experience that Proust describes is lost without a worthwhile replacement, and our relationship to art is less than it could be.

To Laugh at Scientists: Nietzschean Tragic Culture in the Contemporary World

Nietzsche’s aesthetic philosophy in The Birth of Tragedy—though timelessly incisive—is restricted by the passionate and romantic inclinations evident in his early works. This paper reconstructs the origin, function and demise of Nietzschean tragic culture under the hegemony of Socratism, before revealing self-imposed limitations within his metaphysics of art, and adjusting his call for a renewal of tragic culture to be applied to the ostensibly endless world of multimodal expression we exist within today.

Choices inside Patriarchy; Patriarchy inside Choices

This essay delves into the complexities of mainstream modern feminism, specifically choice feminism, by conceptualising it as a reaction to the sex wars of the 1970s. I contrast what it means to be empowered as a woman with what it means to be liberated and explore how choice feminism inadvertently quashes the vital interaction and critical discussion generated by opposing feminist viewpoints such as these two.