The Roots: Individual Mastery versus Anti-hegemonic Sovereignty

The Core: Civil and Political Rights or Socioeconomic Well-Being

The Fruits: Identity Politics or the Flowering of Civil, Political, Cultural, and Environmental Rights

Conclusion: Concrete Universals

Notes

Disclosure Statement

Notes on Contributor

References

Abstract

     Based on the principle that universals are valid if they are concrete universals, this article provides a comparison between Western liberal and Chinese Marxist approaches to human rights. It does so in three steps. First is the analysis of the foundations, or roots, of the Western liberal emphasis on an individual’s mastery over a “right” understood in terms of private property, and the Marxist tradition’s emphasis on anti-hegemonic sovereignty in light of anti-colonial struggles for national liberation. Second is the contrast between the development of the Western approach to the core human rights in terms of freedom of expression, movement, and assembly, and the Marxist emphasis on the right to socioeconomic well-being, or common prosperity. Third is the comparison between the fruits of either tradition, one in terms of identity politics, and the other in the emphasis on civil, political, cultural, and environmental rights. The article concludes by asking whether the two approaches are able to come to an understanding of each other, and proposes that such an understanding may need to take place in light of the concept and reality of concrete universals.

The Western Emphasis on Individual Mastery over Private Property

     To begin with the roots: the Western tradition begins in Western Europe of the eleventh century. During this period, the fabled “lawyer popes” began the process of a thorough transformation of the European legal and political framework. These lawyer popes and their advisers made a crucial rediscovery: the ancient Roman concept of absolute private property. In Rome of the second century BCE, they were faced with a legal conundrum that concerned slaves. Was a slave a human being or a “thing” (res)? If the former, then the relation between a master and a slave would be one between human beings; if the latter, then the relation would be one between a human owner and an object or a “thing.” Given that slaves had gradually been reduced to the same level as cattle and material objects, it was the relation between a master and a “thing” that constituted the legal problem to be solved.

     Roman jurists—legal theorists—came up with an ingenious solution that would come to have repercussions they could never have imagined. This was the category of absolute private property,1 in which the primary relation of the owner of private property was to the “thing” that he—and it was invariably a “he”—owned.2 This may seem like a somewhat strange way to formulate the solution, since those who are immersed in the Western tradition tend to think of private property in terms of the relations with other owners: I own this object, which means that you do not own it. Not so for the Romans. Instead, absolute private property was constituted as the relation between the owner and the object owned. Why? Because the object owned was a slave. The various ways in which this relation was expressed are telling: the slave was seen as simply an extension of the master, an automaton that acted as though it were a part of the master, as the hand of the master.3

Conclusion: Concrete Universals

     In conclusion, two points need to be made. To begin with, I have emphasised two approaches and indeed traditions concerning human rights. One begins from individual mastery over private property, grows into civil and political rights, and flowers in terms of identity politics. The other begins from anti-hegemonic sovereignty, upon which grows socioeconomic well-being, and flourishes in term of civil, political, cultural, and economic rights in a socialist system. But a question remains as to whether they have any common ground. By way of an answer, let us consider two documents from the United Nations, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (UNGA 1966a) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (UNGA 1966b). In many ways, these two documents embody the two traditions I have analysed in this study, INTERNATIONAL CRITICAL THOUGHT 247 although it is notable that the Marxist tradition’s emphases are also to be found in most developing—and formerly colonised—countries, who also are signatories to the right to development (UNGA 1986). The history of the writing of these documents is instructive: the two main declarations were initially planned to be one document. However, due to disagreement in emphasis between countries that espouse the Western liberal tradition and the majority of countries that were formerly colonised by such countries and strongly advocate anti-hegemonic sovereignty, the declaration was divided into the two we have now. They were initially published in 1966, and they both came into effect in 1976. If one considers the countries that have signed and ratified the declarations (not difficult to determine), it is clear that a divide still exists and mutual recognition of distinct traditions and emphases on human rights still requires considerable work (Sun 2014; Li et al. 2015, 68–69; Zwart 2020).

Abstract

1. Introduction

2. Option one: reject philosophy

3. Option two: philosophy enfeebled

4. Option three: a robust form of philosophy

5. Justifying the robust form of philosophy

6. From liberal education to liberal politics

References

Abstract

Hume’s longest analysis of man’s rational faculty—Book 1 of A Treatise of Human Nature 1—“concludes” with philosophy seemingly pronounced illegitimate, just before Hume then puzzlingly resumes the philosophic life. I argue that the section serves a crucial function in Hume’s overall project: it guides thinkers through a series of introspections, leading them to both reconceive and reorient themselves as driven by the passion of curiosity. This oddly truth-directed passion redefines both reason’s relationship to the passions and the nature of philosophy. Though reason and passion are prima facie antagonistic, I argue that the greater role Hume gives to the passions is the precondition for his subsequent justification of moral-political philosophy as oriented towards wisdom rather than merely towards pleasure. I then show how this justification for philosophy illuminates how Hume connects liberal education to liberal politics, and why his political philosophy emphasizes liberal maxims.

1. Introduction

Hume frequently refers to nature’s secrets, suggesting he endorses Heraclitus’s famous maxim: nature loves to hide.1 Apparently imitating nature, Hume leaves a key insight concerning the nature of man’s mind opaque in A Treatise of Human Nature. 2 Though Book 1 of Treatise, “Of the Understanding,” provides Hume’s most sustained analysis of man’s intellect, only in the conclusion of Book 2, “Of the Passions,” does Hume disclose that a passion—curiosity—is “the first source of all our enquiries” (2.3.10.1).3 This central claim’s only clear precedent comes in Book 1s conclusion, when Hume remarks that “the origin of [his] philosophy” is the pleasure philosophy provides him (2.3.10.1, 1.4.7.12).4 Since he sees an idea’s origin as central to the proper understanding of it, Hume’s silence concerning philosophy’s origin in the passions is puzzling.

This silence is all the more remarkable given the stakes. Hume famously, albeit ambiguously, claims that “reason is, and ought only to be a slave of the passions” (2.3.3.4). But philosophy’s legitimacy as the quest for wisdom hinges upon whether thinking is anything more than a passion’s nonrational pursuit of pleasure.5 If the pleasure of thought is not inextricably tied to a rationally justifiable pursuit of wisdom, then philosophy, the love and pursuit of wisdom, is illusory. Philosophy would be an incoherent way of life. And, of more widespread concern, if social-political philosophy is not directed towards truth, then there would be no possible ascent from membership in a party of passionate interest to genuinely understanding political life and perhaps thereby refining it for the better. My intention in this article is to elucidate the way in which Hume ties the pleasure of thought to a rationally justifiable pursuit of wisdom, and the distinctive understanding of philosophy that this tie entails. These epistemic roots of Hume’s approach to social-political philosophy are the vantage point from which we can understand the forcefulness of Hume’s political liberalism

Highlights

Abstract

Keywords

1. Introduction

2. The five problems of irreversibility

3. Dynamical density functional theory

4. First problem: The source of irreversibility in thermodynamics

5. Second Problem: The Definition of “Equilibrium” and “Entropy”

6. Third problem: The justification of coarse-graining

7. Fourth problem: The (irreversible) approach to equilibrium

8. Fifth problem: The arrow of time

9. Conclusion

Declaration of Competing Interest

Acknowledgments

References

Abstract

Thermodynamics has a clear arrow of time, characterized by the irreversible approach to equilibrium. This stands in contrast to the laws of microscopic theories, which are invariant under time-reversal. Foundational discussions of this “problem of irreversibility” often focus on historical considerations, and do therefore not take results of modern physical research on this topic into account. In this article, I will close this gap by studying the implications of dynamical density functional theory (DDFT), a central method of modern nonequilibrium statistical mechanics not previously considered in philosophy of physics, for this debate. For this purpose, the philosophical discussion of irreversibility is structured into five problems, concerned with the source of irreversibility in thermodynamics, the definition of equilibrium and entropy, the justification of coarse-graining, the approach to equilibrium and the arrow of time. For each of these problems, it is shown that DDFT provides novel insights that are of importance for both physicists and philosophers of physics.

1. Introduction

The temporal asymmetry of thermodynamics is one of the central problems in philosophy of physics. If a cup of hot coffee stands in a room, it will cool down until it has room temperature, but it will not spontaneously heat up by extracting heat from its environment. This is commonly seen as a consequence of the second law of thermodynamics, which assigns to each of these systems a quantity known as “entropy” that increases in these processes and that, most importantly, cannot decrease. Often, this is considered one of the most fundamental laws of physics (Callender, 2001, p. 540).

However, as is also well-known, there is a conflict with the microscopic laws governing the motion of the individual particles that a macroscopic system consists of. These laws are invariant under timereversal,1 which means that if a process can occur in one direction of time, it can also occur in the other direction. Thus, a cup of coffee at room temperature that spontaneously heats up would be in perfect agreement with the microscopic laws of physics, which makes it very difficult to explain why such a behavior is never observed.

An intense discussion on this problem has emerged in philosophy of physics. It has evolved into a variety of sub-debates concerned with different explananda that, in this article will be classified into five problems. Often, foundational discussions of statistical mechanics focus on historical aspects. Moreover, there has been a growth of interest in formal approaches to coarse-graining based on the projection operator formalism (Mori, 1965; Zwanzig, 1960). There is, however, a lack of work that considers the implications of modern research on nonequilibrium statistical mechanics for foundational problems (Wallace, 2015).

Highlights

Abstract

Keywords

1. Introduction

2. The EHT laboratory

3. Coincidence and comparison

4. Concluding remarks

Acknowledgments

References

Abstract

This paper discusses some philosophical aspects related to the recent publication of the experimental results of the 2017 black hole experiment, namely the first image of the supermassive black hole at the center of galaxy M87. In this paper I present a philosophical analysis of the 2017 Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) black hole experiment. I first present Hacking’s philosophy of experimentation. Hacking gives his taxonomy of elements of laboratory science and distinguishes a list of elements. I show that the EHT experiment conforms to major elements from Hacking’s list. I then describe with the help of Galison’s Philosophy of the Shadow how the EHT Collaboration created the famous black hole image. Galison outlines three stages for the reconstruction of the black hole image: Socio-Epistemology, Mechanical Objectivity, after which there is an additional Socio-Epistemology stage. I subsequently present my own interpretation of the reconstruction of the black hole image and I discuss model fitting to data. I suggest that the main method used by the EHT Collaboration to assure trust in the results of the EHT experiment is what philosophers call the Argument from Coincidence. I show that using this method for the above purpose is problematic. I present two versions of the Argument from Coincidence: Hacking’s Coincidence and Cartwright’s Reproducibility by which I analyse the EHT experiment. The same estimation of the mass of the black hole is reproduced in four different procedures.

1. Introduction

In April 2019, an international collaboration of scientists presented Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) observations collected in April 2017 of the radio source at the center of the galaxy Messier 87 (M87). The galaxy M87 has long been known from theoretical models and computer simulations to host a bright, radio source at its center with a supermassive black hole hypothesized to power this radio source. The M87 black hole is considered one of the two largest supermassive black holes in the sky along with the Sagittarius (Sgr) A black hole, a black hole at the center of the Milky Way, near the border of the constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius. Over 200 scientists across the world contributed to the EHT project. Observations were made with sufficient sensitivity to reconstruct images that show a bright orange-yellow asymmetric ring surrounding a dark shadow (a “crescent”). In 2019 the EHT Collaboration published its findings in six scholarly letters (EHT Collaboration 2019a, henceforth EHTC).

In this paper, I present a philosophical analysis of the EHT black hole experiment. I refer mainly to the philosophy of experimentation of Ian Hacking (Hacking 1983, 1988, 1989, 1992), Bas van Fraassen (van Fraassen 1980, 1989, 2001), Nancy Cartwright (Cartwright, 1991) and Peter Galison (Galison, 2019).

The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In Chapter 2, I first present Hacking’s philosophy of experimentation. Hacking gives his taxonomy of elements of laboratory science and distinguishes a list of elements. I use examples from the EHT experiment to illustrate that the EHT experiment conforms to major elements from Hacking’s list.

I then describe with the help of Galison’s Philosophy of the Shadow how the EHT Collaboration created the famous black hole image. Galison, a member of the EHT Collaboration, outlines three stages for the reconstruction of the black hole image: Socio-Epistemology, Mechanical Objectivity, after which there is an additional Socio-Epistemology stage. The Socio-Epistemology and Mechanical Objectivity stages form a cyclic loop (Galison, 2019).

SPEECH AS A FORM OF LOVE

THE INVOCATION TO PATANJALI

LITERACY IN MEDIEVAL CHRISTIAN MONASTICISM

THE FORMATION OF DESIRE

THE NEGATION OF DESIRE

CONCLUSION

REFERENCES

INTRODUCTION

The question I wish to raise in this article is how we are to understand the formative and informative processes of language. At one level, language is understood as a medium for communicating knowledge through propositions that form or represent cognitive understanding and so can be defined as informative. The concern of this article is to explore the scope of this notion of linguistic and conceptual informing and to consider what it overlooks. This concern invites an expansion of the notion of the cognitive, a project that, at least among educational theorists, goes back to Louis Arnold Reid. I accept Reid’s point that ‘cognition’ ‘is often interpreted in far too limited sense—mainly to cognition of facts or concepts expressible in propositional language’ (1973, p. 66), and would add that, since Reid’s writing in the early 1970s matters have not much improved, at least within general educational discourse. To some extent, the influence of theories of language on educational theory has moved on with the widening influence of post-structuralism (Hodgson and Standish, 2009; Peters and Burbules, 2004). Yet, language still remains widely understood in reductive terms; as basically a means of communicating knowledge. The corresponding view of education as the transmission of this knowledge using the tools of language is a common-sense one. Here we can observe how conceptions of language interact with educational theories: transmission from learned to ignorant correlates with a view of language as a tool for communication through propositions. But in the wake of philosophers like Heidegger, Wittgenstein and Derrida, it has become difficult to maintain the view of language as simply a communicative tool (Caputo, 1997; Whiting, 2010; Williams, 2017). Rather, language provides the conditions for the world and the self to be understood, disclosed and formed.