Suchergebnisse

Critical objections to Michel Foucault's genealogical method are oriented toward his supposed Nietzscheanism, by which is meant his creation of a theoretical system in which definite directions for resistance or change are absent. It is shown that Foucault viewed his method as in line with Immanuel Kant's ethical prescription that philosophy remain attentive to how political rationality may exceed its bounds. In this sense, his genealogical method has much in common with the critical theory of the Frankfurt school in that it too is dedicated to a form of internal critique of reason. While it is true that Foucault's method renounces the search for certainty to embrace contingent truths, it may still be directed at unmasking substantive injustices & imagining more just ways of living. Thus, the genealogical method views politics & philosophy as mutually reinforcing activities that allow people to see how they could want to be different from how they presently are. D. Ryfe

Explores the role of women in the 1957 integration of Central High School in Little Rock, AR, drawing on 40 oral histories collected from both black & white participants in the early 1990s. Highlighted are stories about two key protagonists, Minijean Brown, one of the initial nine black students, & Sammie Dean Parker, a leader of the segregationist movement on campus. It is found that white students generally did not feel that integration itself was an active threat, but expressed resentment of & fear toward the intrusion of coercive force into what they considered the idyllic, egalitarian, homogeneous setting of the school. This coercive element, represented by the black students -- in particular, Minnijean -- threatened this sense of homogeneity & certainty about the future. Similarly, by moving beyond her station in both gender & class terms, Sammie Dean also came to represent the intrusion of change into the tranquil culture of the school. Thus, the memories of white students are shown to have been shaped in the prism of gender, race, class, & domesticity of the 1950s. 23 References. D. Ryfe

Addresses the messianism of commodity language in Jacques Derrida's Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International (1993), questioning whether language of the political economy is a second language or the same language as that which it critiques. Karl Marx & Derrida allude to the philosophical metaphor of veiling, mystification, & fetish; however, Derrida's conclusions drawn from Marx's fetishism of commodities present the structure of the messianic as a dimension of both the commodity & its language. Derrida's messianic emerges from the spectrality of the structure of phenomenality &, therefore, must reveal itself in the commodity, suggesting that any analysis of capital must also analyze its messianic power. Marx's commodity language is explored, & the Marxian promise that arises from conflict is compared to Derrida's view of the promise as infinite abstraction & a longing for all that is absent. It is maintained that it is essential to oppose the death of the promise in theoretical certainty & practical complacency & to resist destruction of the present that opens itself to the entrance of history. J. Lindroth

Examines three notions of Marxist totality: Hegelian, Cartesian, & Althusserian. According to the Hegelian view that wholes determine & prefigure parts, a version of historical materialism based on a notion of history as the record of a series of successive, distinct modes of production has been fashioned. In the Cartesian view, in which parts prefigure & determine wholes, an individualist methodology is constructued that assumes a totality built up in the accumulation of individual effects. Finally, in the Althusserian view, parts & wholes cannot be reduced to one another. Thus, Louis Althusser argues that contradictions in society mutually constitute each other, & that a depp structure dominates over the contradictions. It is conceded that if one assumes that a concept of social totality must be linked to a causal essence, then Althusser's decentered Marxist totality cannot legitimately be described as totality. However, it is argued that the power of the Hegelian & Cartesian versions of totality come at the expense of a certain reductionist certainty not shared by the Althusserian version. Instead, within the Althusserian version is opened a recognition of an excess of meaning in particular historical moments that renders a notion of society as ultimately meaningless. 46 References. D. M. Smith

Ergebnisse der empirischen Bildungsforschung werden seit den PISA-Studien verstärkt massenmedial und damit öffentlich dargestellt und diskutiert. Um die (Un)Gesichertheit der dabei präsentierten wissenschaftlichen Evidenz zu verstehen, müssen Rezipienten über ausgereifte epistemologische Überzeugungen verfügen. Ausgereifte epistemologische Überzeugungen sind Voraussetzung für das Verständnis von präsentiertem, evidenzbasiertem Wissen in TV-Wissenschaftsmagazinen und können gleichzeitig durch die implizit dargestellten epistemologischen Dimensionen von wissenschaftlichem Wissen beeinflusst werden. Empirisch gezeigt wird mittels Inhaltsanalyse, wie die epistemologischen Dimensionen wissenschaftlichen Wissens in TV-Wissenschaftsbeiträgen dargestellt werden. Mit Hilfe einer Framing-Analyse wird der Zusammenhang zwischen implizit dargestellten epistemologischen Dimensionen und typischen Darstellungsmustern der Wissenschaftsberichterstattung aufgezeigt. Aus den Ergebnissen werden Empfehlungen für die öffentliche Kommunikation von evidenzbasiertem Wissen der empirischen Bildungsforschung abgeleitet. (DIPF/Orig.).;;;Since the results of the PISA studies have been introduced to the public, results of empirical educational research have increasingly been published and discussed by the mass media. To understand the (un)certainty of represented evidence of scientific research, laypeople need sophisticated epistemological beliefs. Such beliefs are a premise for the understanding of represented evidence-based knowledge in science television programs and can be simultaneously influenced by media's implicit representation of epistemological dimensions of scientific knowledge. An empirical content analysis shows how the epistemological dimensions of scientific knowledge are represented in science television programs. Applying framing analysis, the relationship between typical journalistic styles of science reporting and implicitly represented epistemological dimensions is shown. Based on the results we derive recommendations to improve the public communication of evidence-based knowledge of empirical educational research. (DIPF/Orig.).

"The paper outlines two future scenarios, one 'pessimistic', the other more 'optimistic'. The first assumes that definite limits to growth exist and that, to the extent that this is still possible, economic policies must be radically altered to prevent the collapse of our ecosystems ('global warming'). If this assessment were correct, then we would probably be doomed. For even if all understood the dangers, it would still seem to be extremely unlikely that the major world powers will exit the market economy, i.e. an economic system premised on perpetual growth, anytime soon. Because such a scenario, while possibly realistic, would be social scientifically sterile (why bother if the world is going bust anyway?), the second scenario construes a somewhat 'friendlier' outlook of the future, one in which technologies become available that render economic growth and ecological sustainability compatible. If this scenario came true, then where would the world be headed in the 21st century? This is the question I wish to pursue here, with special emphasis given to China's rise and its implications for Europe. During the past 27 years, China's economy exhibited an average annual growth of 9.6%. At this rate of growth, a country doubles its income every 7.5 years. That means a child born in China today grows up in a country that is 12 times richer than it was during the youth of his/ her parents. If this growth continues unabated, as economist believe it can for at least several more years, then China will overtake the US as the world's largest economy by 2020. At that point, China's per capita incomes would still be below the OECD average. But the world would already have witnessed the emergence of an economic giant of historically unprecedented proportions. And this giant would still have ample scope for further catching up. Given that China's population is more than double that of the whole West, a China that reached a level of development similar to that of an average OECD member would dwarf any single European economy and, eventually, surpass the economies of North America and Europe combined. This would not only shift the weights in the world economy, but sooner or later also those in world politics, in military strength, and, potentially, in the areas of science and (popular) culture as well. At the present point in time, nobody can say with certainty whether any of this will come true. But if it did, then it would mean nothing less than the end of an era that lasted for about 500 years: the era of uncontested European or, for that matter, Western supremacy. Since China is not the only newly emerging power (as is well known, India and Brazil are rapidly rising too now), such a development would seem to be all the more likely. Thus far, however, Europeans appear to be largely oblivious to it. Remarkably, this is true even of the continent's leading intellectual circles. They had better attend to the matter and prepare their publics." (author's abstract)