{"title":"Phraseology “without meaning”: Politics of emptiness","authors":"Aleksandar Ostojic, Aleksandar Cuckovic","doi":"10.2298/fid2302348o","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2298/fid2302348o","url":null,"abstract":"We have heard many times expressions such as: ?empty words?, ?empty talk?, ?hot air?, but is there really an empty ?phraseology?, one that does not mean anything, i.e., that does not have a clear referent (the idea it refers to)? Showing the possibilities of such phraseology without meaning, the paper examines its use in politics, focusing on bureaucratic language that shapes our political reality, and can be found in many constitutional documents of the EU, US, or even UN. Namely, we will try to show that between general and particular meaning, there is a huge gap, an emptiness, which is used by a certain type of speech, in order to absorb every other language and its performative powers. Our criticism will move in two directions: the first has the task of showing the meaning(less) character of political bureaucratic phraseology as such, and its passivizing or non-affirmative effects. The other one comes down to examining the ideological background of Eurocentrism, detecting the hegemonic character of the idea of Europe (and Western civilizations) embedded in its political language. Starting from Ernesto Laclau?s understanding of the ?empty signifier? and the necessary function it has in the foundation of the system (especially a hegemonic one), through the history of the discourse of the idea of Europe, we will show the possibility and use of ?emptiness? in meaning, especially when it comes to core values that are set for the foundation of one?s politics.","PeriodicalId":41902,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy and Society-Filozofija i Drustvo","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88924181","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Credit, debt and money as social institutions of trust","authors":"Andrea Perunovic","doi":"10.2298/fid2302273p","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2298/fid2302273p","url":null,"abstract":"While the notions of credit, debt and money are today almost exclusively associated with economic discourse, their semantic fields prove to be significantly wider and more complex. This article seeks to restore the repressed meanings of these three notions. Its aim consists of a deconstruction of the dominant economic narratives on credit, debt, money and trust, that would show that these concepts should be primarily considered as social, rather than solely economic institutions. Therefore, in the introduction we will look at the etymology of the word credit and disclose its semantic proximity with magic as a social practice. Furthermore, the first section will examine the intrinsic relation between debt and credit, departing from Marcel H?naff?s three types of symbolic debt and exposing how these shape the financial credit in neoliberal capitalism and install the creditor-debtor relation (such as Maurizio Lazzarato describes it) as predominant at all levels of society. The second section shows how relations of credit and debt crystallize in the notion of money: firstly by exposing some major historical and anthropological insights about money; moreover, by considering money from an onto-axiological point of view as the knot in which all social relations of trust culminate; and finally, by relating the three different types of trust in money, proposed by French heterodox economists Michel Aglietta and Andr? Orl?an, to the three forms of symbolic debt, thus showing how credit, debt and money are fundamentally anchored in social relations.","PeriodicalId":41902,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy and Society-Filozofija i Drustvo","volume":"78 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80083612","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A system of trust? Robert Brandom and Hegel’s phenomenology of spirit","authors":"S. Ramas","doi":"10.2298/fid2302223r","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2298/fid2302223r","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, we discuss Robert B. Brandom?s reading of G. W. F. Hegel, especially his later work, A Spirit of Trust: A Reading of Hegel?s Phenomenology, in order to tackle the question of ?trust? as the structure of recognition. First, we reconstruct Brandom?s reading of Hegel?s philosophy as a form of ?social recognitive pragmatics? with a ?historical recollective account of conceptual content?, by which he aims at a re-definition of practical normativity based upon trust. Then, we examine his notion of trust as the ground for a future, post-modern society. Finally, we point at some difficulties concerning Brandom?s notion of post-modern age and examine the concept of trust as key to the modern understanding of social bonds.","PeriodicalId":41902,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy and Society-Filozofija i Drustvo","volume":"37 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89729035","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Recognition as a counter hegemonic strategy","authors":"Marjan Ivkovic","doi":"10.2298/fid2302257i","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2298/fid2302257i","url":null,"abstract":"Building on the analyses of cultural hegemony in the works of Nancy Fraser and Wendy Brown, I argue in the paper that the historic bloc (order of cultural hegemony) of post-Fordist capitalism is characterized by a particular dynamic between several ?axes? of hegemony that gives rise to the ?paradox of engagement/disengagement?. The ?progressive-expertocratic? axis of hegemony creates a subject-position of the ?engaged self?, a figure embodying a certain promise of political agency that is simultaneously obstructed by other, depoliticizing axes of hegemony. This dynamic is conducive to the rise of contemporary right-wing authoritarianism, which purports to fulfill this promise of political agency through a series of displacements - the counterhegemonic left, I argue, has so far not formulated an effective alternative to this strategy. In the second part, I explore the potential of Axel Honneth?s theory of recognition, in particular his concept of ?interpersonal respect?, for grounding a left strategy of connecting (mutually articulating) the hegemonic figure of the ?engaged self? with a progressive politics of social transformation. To that end, I elaborate Honneth?s perspective by means of an argument about the role of trust in the context of societal crises that Igor Cvejic, Srdjan Prodanovic and I have recently formulated.","PeriodicalId":41902,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy and Society-Filozofija i Drustvo","volume":"143 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76939802","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The importance of interdependence and responsible epistemic behavior in crises","authors":"Nikolina Smiljanic","doi":"10.2298/fid2302337s","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2298/fid2302337s","url":null,"abstract":"Recently, we found ourselves in an unexpected and specific situation facing the COVID-19 pandemic which we wanted to understand. It was a situation that no one predicted, and we all wanted to know more about it using various epistemic practices. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on our lives and has emphasized the importance of behaving in a mutually interdependent manner, as we are directly responsible for the lives and health of others in these circumstances. This paper emphasizes the importance of interdependence and epistemic responsibility of individuals within society and policymakers who bear a particularly heavy epistemic responsibility during the COVID-19 pandemic and possible future crises.","PeriodicalId":41902,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy and Society-Filozofija i Drustvo","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82557465","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Nature as the source of Mysterium Tremendum: An essay on the poetic works of Blackwood, Smith and Campbell","authors":"Marko Pisev","doi":"10.2298/fid2303452p","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2298/fid2303452p","url":null,"abstract":"This paper is an attempt to analyze three horror classics - Algernon Blackwood?s ?The Willows? (1907), Clark Ashton Smith?s ?Genius Loci? (1936) and Ramsey Campbell?s ?The Voice of the Beach? (1977) - in which the landscape is envisioned as the abode of supernatural power. The common thread between these stories is the concept of natural scenery which merges and blends the real and unreal, the mind, flesh and the phenomenal world. As landscape is a major component of the plot, rather than mere background to the stories, the authors use it to formulate certain metaphysical ideas about existence and the nature of reality itself. My objective is to historically and epistemologically contextualize these ideas, clarify them and relate them to particular recent developments in philosophy and social theory. My second aim is to examine the semantics of space particular to each narrative, the association and partition of its structural elements, and the latent level of meaning arising from the organization of the stories? mise-en-sc?ne.","PeriodicalId":41902,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy and Society-Filozofija i Drustvo","volume":"161 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135699401","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Post-patriarchal society and the authority of dialogue - on free faith, atheism and the meaning of language","authors":"Zelimir Vukasinovic","doi":"10.2298/fid2303474v","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2298/fid2303474v","url":null,"abstract":"The paper is an attempt at understanding the historic nature of the transition to postmodernity, metaphysically reflected in Nietzsche?s words ?God is dead?, as it is, in its various aspects, manifested through the form of post-patriarchal society. Post-patriarchal society is interpreted here as an order of values anchored in the empty place previously held by original and ultimate authority. Within the context of the (un)certain end of metaphysics, it is, implicitly, necessary to explore the presuppositions on which religion and the meaning of language are based today. Thus, Nietzsche?s experience of the epoch will be considered in relation to Zizek?s perception of ?a genealogical desert between man and God?, which provides a theoretical framework for the reinterpretation of our understanding of the relation between religion, atheism and modernity.","PeriodicalId":41902,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy and Society-Filozofija i Drustvo","volume":"35 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135699395","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Awaiting the demise of the liberal order: Historicising the crisis of liberalism","authors":"Vukan Markovic","doi":"10.2298/fid2303495m","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2298/fid2303495m","url":null,"abstract":"This review article analyses the merits and shortcomings of three recent works by Matthew Rose, Peter Turchin, and Krishnan Nayar about the crisis in Western liberal democracies and liberalism. By exploring the intellectual and economic causes of the crisis, these authors are trying to establish a historical model that would explain the current crisis through a comprehensive account of the development of Western societies. In doing so, they identify the detrimental role of the elites and the growing inequalities as the major factor that historically contributes to the demise of liberal values, endangering democratic rule of law. Therefore, the three books are a warning that the demise of the liberal order will bring about the resurgence of right-wing authoritarianism. However, all three authors avoid discussing the nature of liberalism as the dominant ideology in the West. This article presents a criticism of such models, arguing that any discussion of the crisis of liberalism which avoids considerations about liberalism itself and liberal ideologies, necessarily fails to encapsulate the actual experience of the crisis. In addition, these models limit history?s usefulness in interpreting the causes of the crisis and preventing its consequences.","PeriodicalId":41902,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy and Society-Filozofija i Drustvo","volume":"298 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135699409","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Foucault effect in the sociology of knowledge","authors":"Dušan Ristić, D. Marinković","doi":"10.2298/fid2301153r","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2298/fid2301153r","url":null,"abstract":"This research proposes that Foucault?s concepts of power/knowledge and genealogy constitute a significant turning point, not only in philosophical and historical terms but also in the research framework of the sociology of knowledge. The first level of Foucault?s contribution to the sociology of knowledge is widely recognized through the concept of discourse and its dimensions of materiality, power and knowledge. The second level is the analytical grid of power/knowledge itself, which focuses on the relays established between them. The third level, which we consider a crucial area open to further interpretation, is the concept of the history of the present. Although Foucault?s contribution has already been acknowledged in contemporary sociological research of knowledge, our objective is to expand on this recognition by highlighting the significance of genealogy?s dimensions to existing approaches, namely the historical sociology of knowledge and sociology of knowledge approach to discourse.","PeriodicalId":41902,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy and Society-Filozofija i Drustvo","volume":"12 3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90682100","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Which king, whose sovereignty? Notes on the nation-state in times of globalization","authors":"Ruiz Navarro","doi":"10.2298/fid2302289n","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2298/fid2302289n","url":null,"abstract":"One of the most prominent issues in contemporary social philosophy is the democratic institutionalization of social change. In the following paper, we analyze how such an objective must not overlook the changes wrought by globalization. To this end, we first present some of the critical responses to globalization presented by contemporary thinkers (Federici, Tomba, Srnicek). Next, we tackle the notions of the ?diffuse regime of transnational power?, ?lex mercatoria? and ?governance?, and point out how these concepts are indispensable for a complete understanding of the present of capitalism in the areas of trade and","PeriodicalId":41902,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy and Society-Filozofija i Drustvo","volume":"47 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88195814","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}