The Pragmatism of Life in Poststructuralist Times

Ernste, Huib

doi:10.1068/a3653

Cited by 26 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 13 publications

(2 reference statements)

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“…What is missing in Wirth's conceptualization of urban life, and in the work of many urban geographers in the same tradition, are the philosophical anthropological insights Georg Simmel anticipated. Not only are they extensively elaborated in the work of Helmuth Plessner, but they gained renewed relevance in the face of today's late-modernist (Werlen 2009b) and post-structuralist (Baudrillard, Lyotard, Derrida, see also Weinstein and Weinstein 1993) social constructivism (Ernste 2004).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In one of my previous essays, I have already tried to show that these laws, which, because of their paradoxality, already sound very postmodern, indeed could mediate between classical late-modern action theories and post-structural approaches (Ernste 2004). Putting that aside, let us now return to the issue of understanding urban life.…”

Section: Urban Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…If it works, this approach could offer a technique to control and limit the claims of Darwinism as well as those of Foucaultism. If it works, the technique of Philosophical Anthropology can be seen not only as a paradigm within the discipline of philosophical anthropology (among other paradigms), but as a subtle paradigm within epistemology, in ethics, in bioethics, in cultural sciences (De Mul 1991), in philosophy of technology (De Mul 2010), in psychology (Coolen 2008), in sociology (Claessens 1980;Tomasello 2008), and human geography (Ernste 2004), in philosophy of nature (Grene 1974) Biological and medical anthropology, social and cultural anthropology, and historical anthropology -each investigate different aspects of the human condition. Yet the first specifically philosophical anthropological task consists of integrating these different aspects into a single interdisciplinary framework.…”

Section: Darwinism and Foucaultism Seen From The Perspective Of Eccenmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Plessner's Philosophical Anthropology. Perspectives and Prospects

Mul¹

2014

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Urban Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Darwinism and Foucaultism Seen From The Perspective Of Eccenmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Plessner's Philosophical Anthropology. Perspectives and Prospects

Mul¹

2014

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“…The neural debate, which I want to discuss in this paper, for example, is important because it forces us to rethink our conceptions of what makes a subject an ethical agent and what this tells us about the ontology of the geographical subject. Further, the discussion also exposes a number of binary oppositions prominent in 5 social scientific and geographical theorising, namely objectivity -subjectivity, determination -indetermination, explanation -interpretation, cause -reason, nature -culture, materialitydiscourse (Cloke et al 2005, Sayer 1991, Dixon and Jones III 2004.In commenting on the neural debate and its relevance (or non-relevance for Geography), I want to build on previous interventions by Huib Ernste (2004) and Wolfgang Zierhofer (2002) in this journal. I will argue that the philosophical anthropology of Helmuth Plessner may provide some significant entry-points for overcoming the binary oppositions that have been exposed in those debates about life sciences and neurobiology by conceptualising the ontology of the geographical subject as an ontology of possibility.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In commenting on the neural debate and its relevance (or non-relevance for Geography), I want to build on previous interventions by Huib Ernste (2004) and Wolfgang Zierhofer (2002) in this journal. I will argue that the philosophical anthropology of Helmuth Plessner may provide some significant entry-points for overcoming the binary oppositions that have been exposed in those debates about life sciences and neurobiology by conceptualising the ontology of the geographical subject as an ontology of possibility.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

A Neural Turn? On the Ontology of the Geographical Subject

Korf

2008

Environ Plan A

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A neural turn? On the ontology of the geographical subject Korf, B Korf, B (2008 A neural turn? On the ontology of the geographical subject AbstractThe modernist conception of the autonomous "subject" as centred, sovereign, and coherently rational, acting intentionally, knowledgeably, and volitionally, has been challenged from a variety of sources, including poststructuralism, feminism, and posthumanism. A different kind of attack on the modernist subject has recently been staged by neurobiologists who have started to decentre the subject from within -to "naturalise" (and materialise) the subject. This biological naturalism -the new "life sciences" -claims to challenge our conceptions of self, the ethical subject, and what we conceive of as "life". But what conceptions we have of the configurations of the self is fundamental to our understandings and conceptions of ethics. This paper traces a debate between German neurobiologists and (post)humanist philosophers on the ontology of such things as "free will", "ethical agency", and the "self" as an example of how the dispute between naturalists and nonnaturalist or postnaturalists is instrumental in sharpening our understanding of the self and of ethical agency. The paper argues that naturalism is bound to fail due to its inability to grasp the intersubjectivist nature of ethical agency, a theme which links up with recent geographical writing on ethics. I suggest, building on a recent contribution of Huib Ernste in this journal, that we should consider Helmuth Plessner's concept of eccentric positionality and ontology of the possible as a postmetaphysical kind of ethical humanism. A neural turn?On the ontology of the geographical subject A neural turn?On the ontology of the geographical subject Abstract:The modernist conception of the autonomous "subject" as centred, sovereign and coherently rational acting intentionally, knowledgeably and volitionally has been challenged from a variety of sources, including poststructuralism, feminism and posthumanism. A different kind of attack on the modernist subject has recently been staged by neurobiologists who have started to decentre the subject from within -to "naturalise" (and materialise) the subject. This The modernist conception of the autonomous "subject" which is centred, sovereign and coherently rational and acts intentionally, knowledgeably and volitionally has been challenged from a variety of sources. A widely accepted view in poststructuralist writings holds that the subject has become subjected to the workings of power, language and desire and is not the main or most relevant origin of action (Ernste 2004, 440). Some feminist authors, eg Diprose (2002), argue that the identity of any self is performed and reconstituted within acts, which undermines the modernist idea of the subject remaining unchanged by her act and thus being held accountable for those acts. Posthumanism disaggregates, distributes and dislodges the human subject -the subject becomes local, fluid and contingent: "Human rationality loses its...

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Seasonality, Rhythms and Post-Postmodern Everyday Urban Landscapes

Jauhiainen

Landscape Series

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The Pragmatism of Life in Poststructuralist Times

Cited by 26 publications

References 13 publications

Plessner's Philosophical Anthropology. Perspectives and Prospects

Plessner's Philosophical Anthropology. Perspectives and Prospects

A Neural Turn? On the Ontology of the Geographical Subject

Seasonality, Rhythms and Post-Postmodern Everyday Urban Landscapes

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