Modern and contemporary politics of P. R. China contain many elements similar to neo-Nazism if not anti-communist. The derivation from Communist doctrines was a less-known debate inside the CPC party leadership soon after the declaration on the founding of People’s Republic of China - notably between Mao, Zedong and the state leadership which resulted in the criminalization of the first president Liu, Shaoqi. The researcher, as a self-identified cisgender homosexual male and Christian, observed the cultural revisionist developments of the (...) P. R. C. regime from early childhood to date. The article enumerates some elements of the Chinese culture’s characteristics in taming and eliminating psychological and social identity formation that constitutes the regime stability in its dictatorial diplomatic rhetorics. It adopts the Christian theology and queer theology in a Gestalt recombination for the non-identity problem albeit with predominant militarization of religion approaches by the “United Front Working Group” for populist enslavement. The article hypothesizes a receptive psychosocial identity from such population in general, and the similar for Buddhist cultural origins. With the influences of designed propaganda media in media psychology, the political responses in mass psychological phenomena from the suppressed regime is considered to be a reflection on their inner senses of helplessness from the active and reactive failures of identity formation. The amplification of such phenomena is contributed by the nationalism propagandas and a gaslighting technique applied to International relations, which results in subjective Stockholm syndrome in some portions of the population. Relative intersubjectivity and absolute personal identity will be discussed in the conclusions, and its implications to dictatorial politics. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: The concept of the “banality of evil,” put forward by Hannah Arendt to describe the psychological profile of the Nazi criminal in Eichmann in Jerusalem, is intimately tied to her reading of Plato. In Arendt’s examination of the question of evil, she found some support in Kant’s philosophy. However, the problem of guilt under Nazism ultimately goes back to an inability to think. The two-in-one, a concept which describes the activity of thinking, is based on Plato’s dialogues. An (...) examination of these philosophical sources contributes to the understanding of the possibilities and the limits of Arendt’s reflection on evil. RÉSUMÉ : Le concept de banalité du mal, proposé par Hannah Arendt pour décrire le profil psychologique du criminel nazi dans Eichmann in Jerusalem, est intimement lié à ses lectures de Platon. Pour aborder la question du mal, elle a découvert des appuis chez Kant, mais le problème de la culpabilité sous le régime nazi renvoie ultimement au défaut de penser. Le deux-en-un, concept qui décrit la pensée, a été défini sur la base de l’oeuvre platonicienne. L’examen de ces sources philosophiques permet de mieux comprendre les possibilités et les limites de la réflexion arendtienne sur le mal. (shrink)

Commentary of texts from Nieztsche to show he was the father of nazism. ISBN 978 84 686 6177 3 Published by Bubok Publishing S.L., 2015.

[Utilitarism, Nazism, and Euthanasia] The article is an answer to Prof. Munzarová who criticised my defence of physician-assisted suicide. The article points to shortcomings in the reply of prof. Munzarová which flow from the author’s underestimation of normative theory. Among these shortcomings are the ignoring of the arguments of her opponent; her calling into question the moral credit of the proponents of the competing theory (utilitarianism) rather than a critical analysis; unclear theoretical principles (a switching between paternalism and autonomy, (...) the presentation of the “principle of double-effect” as the standpoint of common sense); an unconvincing version of the “argument of the slippery slope” (ignoring the diametrical differences between the contemporary demand of some patients for assisted death and the Nazi programme of involuntary euthanasia). (shrink)

Heidegger’s Black Notebooks demonstrate that there have been serious misconceptions about the status and aim of his philosophy and language. They show this to be a result of intentional misdirection which finds a twofold expression in his language: For one, an exceptional ‘few’ are addressed rather than the reader or listener in general. Being is seen as struggle of intuitive insight against common rationality, and communication must, thus, be intentionally ambivalent. Secondly, for the selected few the understanding and guiding of (...) our Being is a matter not of human emancipation but a process of völkisch ‘awakening’ and ‘perception.’. (shrink)

This essay discusses various representations of Eichmann's mind that were fashioned on the occasion of his trial in Jerusalem in 1961. Gideon Hausner the prosecutor presented the defendant as demonic. Hannah Arendt, the German-born American Jewish philosopher portrayed him as banal or thoughtless. Limiting themselves to the issue of mens rea in their judgment, the Israeli Supreme Court justices described Eichmann's mind as controlled by criminal intent. While these views have been widely discussed in the literature, much of this essay (...) focuses on a hitherto little noted perspective on Eichmann's mind that was formulated by the mental health experts who examined Eichmann for the prosecution. As compared to the inclusionist, confictual, and complex picture these experts presented of Eichmann's mind, Arendt's and Hausner's views appear similar in their reductionism, rather than diametrically opposed, while the approach of the Supreme Court justices to Eichmann's mind can be regarded as restrictive. Methodological problems involved in all these different perspectives are discussed, and it is argued that even though the psychological outlook declares itself to be non-judgmental, it does, in fact, entail a dimension of moral judgment. Finally, Eichmann 's recently declassified memoirs are adduced and interpreted as lending some support to the psychological, inclusionist perspective on Eichmann's mind. (shrink)

Discusses the question of the objectivity or subjectivity of moral judgments, hoping to illuminate it by contrasting moral and aesthetic judgments. In her critical assessment of the nature of moral judgments, Foot concludes that some such judgments (as e.g. that Nazism was evil) are definitely objective. The concept of morality here supplies criteria independent of local standards, which function as fixed starting points in arguments across local boundaries, whereas, by contrast, aesthetic truths can ultimately depend on locally determined criteria. (...) More problematic is the apparently different relation of moral and of aesthetic judgments to rational choice. Individuals may have no reason to choose what is beautiful, but we think that they must always have reason to choose what is morally right, which raises one of the most difficult problems in moral philosophy. (shrink)

Suppose that you are engaging with someone who is your oppressor, or someone who espouses a heinous view like Nazism or a ridiculous view like flat-earthism. In contexts like these, there is a disparity between you and your interlocutor, a dramatic normative difference across which you are in the right and they are in the wrong. As theorists of humility, we find these contexts puzzling. Humility seems like the *last* thing oppressed people need and the *last* thing we need (...) in dealing with those whose views are heinous or ridiculous. Responding to such people via humility seems uncalled for, even inappropriate. But how could this be, given that humility is a *virtue*? The purpose of the paper is to explore this puzzle. We explain what the puzzle is and then attempt to draw some lessons from it: first, the lesson that the importance of humility is limited in several ways, and second, the lesson that humility nonetheless has several important roles to play, even for people who are in the right in contexts of disparity. (shrink)

Hope and Memory: Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Tzvetan Todorov; David Bellos The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia by Richard Overy Stalinism and Nazism: History and Memory Compared by Henry Rousso; Lucy B. Golsan Stalinism and Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison by Ian Kershaw; Moshe Lewin Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism? Five Interventions in the use of a Notion by Slavoj Zizek.

Nuestro propósito es dilucidar la posibilidad de un planteamiento de lo político en el pensamiento de Heidegger. Es sabido que éste estuvo vinculado biográficamente al nazismo, pero creemos que en su filosofía hay conexiones con lo político más allá de la adhesión a la política del NSDAP. Es por eso que hemos de rastrear la posibilidad de una ontología de lo político, que exponga la preocupación por la vida en colectividad, y es en Heidegger donde encontramos una serie de pautas (...) a partir de las que desarrollar esa ontología, no desde la óptica de una filosofía política o una politología, sino desde el pensamiento acerca de los otros, de los demás con los que compartimos mundo, de la mera convivencia del uno con el otro. Siguiendo esto, usando las herramientas legadas por Heidegger, desmontaremos la política contemporánea, que creemos que no ha comprendido el sentido ontológico de lo político mismo, e iniciaremos el desarrollo de una ontología de lo político que nos permita elucubrar la construcción fáctica de una nueva política dentro de un nuevo marco ontológico existencial. ---- Our purpose is to elucidate the possibility of a political approach in Heidegger's thinking. It is known that he was biographically linked to Nazism, but we believe that in his philosophy there are connections with the political beyond adherence to NSDAP policy. That is why we have to trace the possibility of an ontology of the political, which exposes the concern for life in collectivity, and it is in Heidegger where we find a series of guidelines from which to develop that ontology, not from the perspective of a political philosophy or a politology, but from the thought about others, about the others with whom we share the world, about the mere coexistence of one with the other. Following this, using the tools bequeathed by Heidegger, we will dismantle contemporary politics, which we believe has not understood the ontological sense of the political itself, and we will initiate the development of an ontology of the political that allows us to elucidate the factual construction of a new policy within a new existential ontological framework. (shrink)

Nietzsche and Shaw are famous and infamous: famous for their innovative and influential forms of writing, but infamous for their apparent support of totalitarianism and Nazism. However, while it has long been shown that Nietzsche’s provocative language about “breeding” and “masters and slaves” was intended to enhance culture through competition, it is still an open question how and when Shaw supported biological eugenics. Via Nietzsche’s “philosophical breeding,” this article presents a new reading of Shaw’s Man and Superman: on the (...) one hand, it contrasts Nietzsche’s philosophical Übermensch with Shaw’s eugenic Superman; and on the other hand, it connects Nietzsche’s agonistic enhancement of culture with Shaw’s philosophical reflections in “Don Juan in Hell.” In contrast to Tanner’s support of eugenic breeding in his Revolutionist’s Handbook, Shaw’s Don Juan remarkably resembles Nietzsche’s notion of “philosophical breeding” toward a more competent, truthful, and autonomous orientation that is needed in increasingly complex global politics. (shrink)

WHAT THIS PAPER ARGUES. Five papers into this corpus, its central citizen-facing instrument is called cognitive self-vaccination. This was never a casual metaphor available for the taking. Roberto Esposito's biopolitics trilogy — Communitas (2004), Immunitas (2011), and Bíos (2008) — is built entirely around the Latin munus: communitas as cum + munus, the shared, unclosable debt or exposure that binds a community; immunitas as the negation of that debt, the legal and political exemption that protects an individual by excusing them (...) from it. The corpus adopted immunitas's own vocabulary five papers ago without engaging the theorist who did the most to explain what that vocabulary costs. This paper does the engaging. Read through Esposito, two of this corpus's central mechanisms turn out to be his founding dialectic under different names. A5 — constitutive attachment, the unclosable exposure to loss of a specifically loved other — is communitas: the munus that cannot be discharged, the debt to another that constitutes the bond precisely by never being paid off. The self-vaccination apparatus — the falsifiability criterion, the act-level test, the Personal System Reminder's reflexive turn — is immunitas: the protective negation of that exposure, built to exempt the self from manipulation the way Roman immunitas exempted its holder from public obligation. Esposito's sharpest and most consequential claim is that immunization, unbounded, turns autoimmune: the same mechanism built to protect life can turn against the life it protects, with no natural stopping point internal to the mechanism itself, and he develops this argument principally through Nazism's own immunitary logic of purification collapsing into mass thanatopolitical destruction. This paper asks Esposito's question of the corpus's own instrument: does a self-vaccination practice built to apply, symmetrically, to every source — including sources currently trusted, including the self — have any internal stopping point, or does its own logic drive toward an epistemic autoimmune disorder in which the ordinary communal trust healthy epistemic life requires is itself consumed by the mechanism built to protect it? A second and larger application follows the same structure at civilizational scale: this corpus's own longevity asymmetry thesis, read through Esposito, is an autoimmune-thanatopolitical mechanism in the most literal possible register, in which the technology of biological immunization itself, extended asymmetrically, produces political consequences that can unmake the civilizational body its beneficiaries live inside — a dynamic this paper anchors in Esposito's own 2020 diagnosis of COVID-19 vaccine nationalism as exactly this pattern at a smaller scale. The paper closes with Esposito's own proposed alternative, affirmative biopolitics built on biological tolerance rather than unbounded immunization, applied at both scales this paper has developed: to individual epistemic practice, and to F2 governance design. (shrink)

Nuestra propuesta es desarrollar una teoría política a partir del pensamiento de Martin Heidegger. En la biografía de Heidegger, la vinculación que tiene con la política pasa por ser miembro del Partido Nazi (NSDAP) pero en su filosofía sólo hace algunas referencias explícitas a la cuestión de la vida en comunidad. Sin embargo, lo que pretendemos es que a partir de conceptos como Volk (pueblo) y de la estructura ontológica fundamental de Mit-sein (Ser-con) se pueda establecer una filosofía política de (...) Heidegger, bastante alejada de la barbarie política que supone el nazismo. Para ello hay que desgranar la terminología heideggeriana y definir claramente qué es el Volk y su relación con el Dasein, el individuo particular, y la estructura antes señalada como Mit-sein. La idea general es que el colectivo, la comunidad, se llama Volk y es ese Volk el que dota de Ser a ese ente tan particular llamado Dasein. ---- Our proposal is to develop a political theory from Martin Heidegger's thinking. In Heidegger's biography, the link that he has with politics passes through being a member of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) but in his philosophy he just makes a few explicit references to the question of community life. However, what we intend is that from concepts like Volk (people) and from the fundamental ontological structure of Mit-sein (Being-with) can be established a Heidegger's political philosophy, quite far from the political barbarism that entail the Nazism. For this we have to thresh Heideggerian terminology and clearly define what Volk is and its relation with Dasein, the particular individual, and the structure earlier indicated as Mit-sein. The general idea is that the collective, the community, is called Volk and it is that Volk which endow with Being that entity so particular called Dasein. (shrink)

Modernity’s attitude for new perspective on politics began with Thomas Hobbs and John Lock. Both of these philosophers had based their political views on some philosophical assumptions about mankind. They offered two opposite political disciplines because of their different philosophical anthropology based on their empirical philosophy. The role of peace in their account of natural state of man is in the core of their political thought. Lock introduced natural state of men in peace, therefore concluded a democratic government. Hobbs supposed (...) that natural state of men is in war, therefore he thought about imperial government governed by a powerful dictator to bring peace and security. Although their views were as models for political discipline for a country, their philosophical foundation for their political suggestions can be considered as a basis for the study of world peace. In my paper I am going to examine their views for world peace and evaluate them for realizing world peace. Western modernity based on these two anthropological assumptions had its conclusions in the worst disaster in human history like fascism and Nazism. What has been wrong with modernity that results these problems with humanity? Postmodern thinkers have criticized modern attitude toward peace and security. However, I am going to study the dangers of some anthropological thought that will destroy real world peace in the name of spurious peace. (shrink)

Amid the ongoing political turmoil, symbolized by the recent violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, books and articles abound today to encourage us to re-read anti-totalitarian classics ‘for our times’. But what do we find in this body of work originally written in response to Nazism and Stalinism? Do we find a democratic consensus forged by a shared anti-totalitarian commitment? I doubt it. Considering the cases of Isaiah Berlin and Hannah Arendt, this article highlights discord beneath what may today appear like (...) a post-war democratic consensus. I argue that the anti-totalitarian literature of the last century encompassed multiple political philosophies, which sometimes differed irreconcilably from each other. (shrink)

One of the most historically recent and damaging blows to the reputation of utopianism came from its association with the totalitarian regimes of Hitler’s Third Reich and Mussolini’s Fascist party in World War II and the prewar era. Being an apologist for utopianism, it seemed to some, was tantamount to being an apologist for Nazism and all of its concomitant horrors. The fantasy principle of utopia was viewed as irretrievably bound up with the irrationalism of modern dictatorship. While these (...) conclusions are somewhat understandable given the broad strokes that definitions of utopia are typically painted with, I will show in this paper that the link between the mythos of fascism and the constructs of utopianism results from an unfortunate conflation at the theoretical level. The irrationalism of any mass ethos and the rationalism of the thoughtful utopian planner are, indeed, completely at odds with each other. I arrive at this conclusion via an analysis of the concepts of myth and narrative, and the relationships these have with the concept of utopia. (shrink)

The paper questions the scientific rather than ideological problem of an eventual biological successor of the mankind. The concept of superhumans is usually linked to Nietzsche or to Heidegger’s criticism or even to the ideology of Nazism. However, the superhuman can be also viewed as that biological species who will originate from humans eventually in the course of evolution.While the society is reached a natural limitation of globalism, technics depends on the amount of utilized energy, and the mind is (...) restricted by its carrier, i.e. by the brain, it is language which seems to be the frontier of any future development of humans or superhumans. Language is a symbolization of the world and thus doubling in an ideal or virtual world fruitful for creativity and the modeling of the former. Consequently, the gap between the material and the ideal world is both produced by and productive for language. (shrink)

Nazi ideology was premised on a belief in the superiority of the Germanic race. However, the idea of a superior Germanic race was not invented by the Nazis. By the beginning of the 20th century this idea had already gained not only popular but also mainstream scientific support in England, Germany, the U.S., Scandinavia, and other parts of the world in which people claimed Germanic origins (p. xiii). Yet how could this idea, which is now recognised as ideology of the (...) most dangerous kind, be given the appearance of scientific legitimacy by some of the leading physical anthropologists of the day? (shrink)

In his late lectures, Foucault developed the ancient Greek concept of parrhesia, a courage to speak the truth in the face of danger. While not entirely uncritical of the notion, Foucault seemed to find something of an ideal in the political and aesthetic ideal of franc-parler, of speaking freely and courageously. Simultaneously, the post-1968 political valorized the ideal of parrhesia, or “speaking truth to power”: parrhesia seemed inherently progressive, the sole preserve of the left. But a cursory inspection of the (...) annals of Nazism and fascism shows that these movements also aligned themselves with parrhesiastical modes of expression. The fragmented, disparate strands of today’s neo-fascist revival, too, are closely imbricated with the notion of speaking valiantly in the face of supposed orthodoxies: in many ways, the preeminent parrhesiasts today are found on the neo-fascist side. This points to an essential weakness in the concept of parrhesia, particularly in terms of its value and valence as a strategy for the political left. Perhaps it matters less how we speak—being caught up in language games—than what policies and programs we enact. Žižek’s plea for a renewed dogmatic orthodoxy and Chesterton’s criticism of heresy offer ways out of the parrhesiastical trap. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ: Je me penche sur un aspect de la philosophie sociale de Popper, à savoir les principes d’évaluation des interprétations historiques. Ma thèse globale est que suivant la perspective poppérienne, notre choix parmi des interprétations historiques doit user d’au moins deux des critères qu’applique Popper au choix parmi diverses théories scientifiques : une interprétation devrait logiquement se prêter a une réfutation et elle devrait être consistante. Afin de montrer la pertinence et la fécondité de cette approche, je me concentre sur (...) l’interprétation historique des causes de la montée du nazisme que propose Erich Fromm, en particulier dans Escape from Freedom. Je montrerai que l’application de notions psychanalytiques dans le cadre de son interprétation historique a une valeur explicative faible, voire nulle. Son échec a expliquer certaines questions sociales tient à plusieurs raisons. Premièrement, l’auteur ne fournit pas, quoi qu’il en dise, d’explication causale convaincante. Ensuite, les concepts et les multiples hypotèeses ad hoc auxquels il a recours tendent à rendre son interprétation irréfutable. Enfin, Fromm s’appuie sur des assomptions théoriques contradictoires. Mon analyse est basée sur la notion fondamentale de Popper voulant que la connaissance scientifique empirique exige au strict minimum une ouverture des interprétations historiques à la critique intersubjective. C’est cette exigence qui permet de les critiquer -- c’est-à-dire les accepter, les réfuter et les corriger -- sur une base rationnelle. (shrink)

The twentieth century was a century of progress. During those hundred years, humanity progressed from a world without airplanes, computers, or modern medicine to a new era in which these technological miracles were commonplace. These technical achievements were not the only accomplishments of that fateful century. There also were vast changes in social thought, with great steps forward toward human equality and freedom — the struggle for racial equality, the recognition of women's rights, and the defeat of the new, unprecedented (...) menaces of Nazism and, in many places, of Communism. (shrink)

The political actions of Martin Heidegger raise a compelling question to those concerned with philosophy: How was one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century willing to ally himself with Nazism and what does this mean for philosophy? This question has been raised and brushed aside from the end of the Second World War, when Heidegger was formally accused for his involvement with Hitler's regime and forbidden to attain any official teaching position henceforth. Important thinkers, like his (...) colleague and friend in the pre-war years, Karl Jaspers. testified then against him. But Heidegger's fame rose again above his indignity in the 1950s, when Hannah Arendt in the USA and Jean-Paul Sartre in France, among others, began once again to spread the word of his philosophy and translate his works. These problems have recently intensified after the posthumous publication of Heidegger's Black Notebooks (Schwarze Hefte) in 2014, containing his notes from 1931-1941. Their publication caused seismic tremors in the field of philosophy, with Heidegger's opponents considering themselves finally vindicated by his own pen, and his supporters trying to separate thinking from actual life. However, the influence of Heidegger's thought - as well as that of other representatives of German anti-humanist nationalistic conservatism, such as Oswald Spengler - continues to spread, not only in academic but also in broader social and political circles. In the face of this spreading influence, which is combined with the influence of some disciples such as Nick Land or Giorgio Agamben, a biographical-type confrontation is not enough. We should confront Heidegger directly at the core of his philosophy. We cannot afford to ignore him or bury him under superficial gossip. Instead, we should confront him philosophically. We might be able to clear the ground for such a confrontation, if we resort to the philosophical concepts of autonomy, temporality, and human freedom. In my opinion, the most important philosophical challenge to Heideggerian thought, in this context, has been expressed by Cornelius Castoriadis. In the following chapters, I will argue in favor of this position, outlining the Castoriadian philosophy of time in contrast to the Heideggerian and highlighting the main points of their opposition. The book is divided into two parts. Part one, "Castoriadis against Heidegger" deals with the basic concepts and arguments of both philosophers around human existence, the individual, society, and temporality. We start by presenting Heidegger's scandal in the social-historical context but also with the help of Hannah Arendt's last assessment of the thinker. We move on to outline the basic concepts and structures of Heidegger's philosophical thinking in parallel with Castoriadis' criticism as regards politics, ontology and technoscience. Part two, "Time and existence" first examines the relevant approaches of Lukacs and Ricoeur in comparison to Heidegger and Castoriadis, to elucidate the basic concept of temporality and then presents an outline of Castoriadis' insights on time and existence, before finally applying these concepts to contemporary social-historical phenomena that redefine and transform human existence and social temporalities, like space exploration, digital cyberspaces and online communications. //////// -/- "This book is a tour de force that excites those who agree or disagree with the philosophy of Heidegger. With clarity and sophistication, Schismenos revives the public debate to reveal the rich possibilities for another world. A must-read for everyone interested in a philosophy that matters." - VASILIS KOSTAKIS - Professor of P2P Governance at Tallinn University of Technology and Faculty Associate at Harvard University -/- . (shrink)

El libro “La Iglesia doliente. Un largo invierno en Cracovia”, escrito por la Dra. Miriam Dolly Arancibia, narra el martirio de la filósofa y religiosa Edith Stein y del sacerdote Jerzy Popiełuszko. Ambos fueron víctimas de la persecución a la Iglesia Católica en Polonia, ella lo fue del nazismo, él lo fue del comunismo estalinista. Ambos sufrieron la intolerancia religiosa y racial llevada a su máxima expresión. La ciudad de Cracovia, donde el Beato Juan Pablo II residió durante cuarenta años, (...) es el escenario desde el cual fluye el relato de los acontecimientos. La misma ciudad que será sede de la Jornada Mundial de la Juventud en el año 2016 The book "The suffered Church. A long winter in Krakow", written by Dr. Miriam Dolly Arancibia, recounts the martyrdom of Edith Stein and Jerzy Popiełuszko. Both were victims of persecution by the Catholic Church in Poland, she was under Nazism and he was under Stalinist communism. Both suffered religious and racial intolerance led to its maximum expression. The city of Krakow, where Blessed John Paul II lived for forty years, is the stage from which flows the account of the events and the same city that will host the world youth day in 2016. (shrink)

This paper tries to address the ethical question of Nazism from the point of view of social relations. That implies linking the fulfilment of the fascist ideology with its economic conditions. In this sense, the main proposal is to highlight that, crimes such as those committed by the Nazi regime, are not only possible based on a monstrous bureaucratic formation but also from a permissive dynamic of production and exchange. However, the relative autonomy that we can claim over the (...) ideological factor of the phenomenon faces severe limits. In the "National-socialist" case, those limits are the declining demand, the increase in government debt and the inhibition of the productive investment of capital. It is as if Evil incarnated only at the cost of eroding its conditions of possibility. (shrink)

This paper analyses Ernst Nolte’s interpretation of Bolshevik revolution, and underlines the characteristics of his methodological approach to historical research. According to the German historian, the Russian revolution (1917) determined an ideological dialectics that characterized the first half of the 20th century: following the mechanism of “challenge and response” Nolte has interpreted the birth and the developments of Nazism as a response to Bolshevism, a violent and excessive response (Schreckbild). Thus, Nolte explains the historical development of the Nazi totalitarianism (...) in relationship to the Soviet totalitarianism, and speaks about a "European civil war" (europäische Bürgerkrieg 1917-1945). In this paper the criticisms that several historians have made to Nolte’s point of view are also discussed: this debate is known as “Historikerstreit.” I underline, therefore, the features and the limits of Nolte’s “deconstruction of revolutionary mythology.”. (shrink)

Published in 1951, The origins of totalitarianism was a quantum leap in Hannah Arendt’s academic career. The book made her one of the most important scholars of Nazi ideology. Arendt’s work also won wide acclaim, partly due to a critical review by Eric Voegelin, which did not remain without responses from the author (both in public and in private correspondence). This paper tries to reconstruct the debates of Hannah Arendt and Eric Voegelin (including in the articles New science of politics (...) and Some problems of German hegemony) on the origins of Nazism. (shrink)

This book explores the radical Islamist mindset by adopting the philosophical category of revolutionary Gnosticism. Already used for the study of other revolutionary phenomena such as Nazism, Bolshevism and Jacobinism, never before has this notion been adopted in relation to Salafi -Jihadism, the latest existing revolutionary ideology. The consistency of Salafi -Jihadism with revolutionary Gnosticism reveals a conception of the world that stands in the forgetfulness of a pure transcendent dimension, notwithstanding the apparent spiritual framework and religious justifications that (...) jihadists provide. Through the examination of Islamist sermons and texts in light of a distinct philosophical tradition, this book investigates the activist redemptive effort of Salafi -Jihadism, which leaves God without a clear possibility of intervening in human affairs. (shrink)

الفلسفة التحليلية مدرسة في الفلسفة الغربية. نشأت في مطلع القرن العشرين مع فريجه ورسل ومور وفتجنشتين، وإذا هي تجد تأييدًا من جماعة فيينا، وإذا هي تمتد إلى أمريكا مع كواين وتلاميذه مثل ديفيدسون فضلًا عن هجرة أعضاء جماعة فيينا وجماعة برلين إلى أمريكا هربًا من النازية، وإذا هي تهيمن على أكسفورد مع أوستن ورايل وستراوسون وجرايس، وإذا هي تجد لها نصيرًا في الفكر العربي مع زكي نجيب محمود. ولم يكد القرن الماضي يأذن بالرحيل حتى انتشرت في جميع أنحاء العالم. وأخص (...) ما يميز الفلسفة التحليلية أنها تتحرى وضوح الفكر ودقته، وأنها تضع تحليل اللغة في قلب العمل الفلسفي (التحول اللغوي)، وأنها تستفيد من المنطق الرياضي، وأنها تؤكد على العلاقة الوثيقة بين الفلسفة والعلم. وهي في هذا وغيره تختلف عن مدارس أخرى مثل الفلسفة الأوروبية. ويقدم هذا الكتاب دراسة للمنهج التحليلي، والمشكلات الأساسية في تيارات الفلسفة التحليلية المنوعة، وتطبيقًا من جانبي لهذا المنهج على موضوع المفاهيم Analytic philosophy is a school of thought in Western philosophy. It emerged at the beginning of the twentieth century with Frege, Russell, Moore, and Wittgenstein. It found support in the Vienna circle and spread to America with Quine and his students, such as Davidson, as well as the emigration of members of the Vienna circle and Berlin circle to USA, fleeing Nazism. It dominated Oxford with Austin, Ryle, Strawson, and Grice, and found a champion in Arab thought with Zaki Naguib Mahmoud. Hardly had the last century passed before it spread throughout the world. What distinguishes analytic philosophy most is its pursuit of clarity and precision of thought, its placing of linguistic analysis at the heart of philosophical work (the linguistic turn), its use of mathematical logic, and its emphasis on the close relationship between philosophy and science. In these and other ways, it differs from other schools, such as continental philosophy. This book presents a study of the analytic method, the basic problems in the various trends of analytic philosophy, and my own application of this method to the subject of concepts. -/- . (shrink)

The aim of this article is to try to understand the role of pornography through a number of different channels, namely: the work of art and technology. To understand how the work of art passed from an erotic position to a pornographic one, with explicitly political motivations. To this end, our main references are Walter Benjamin’s work The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technical Reproducibility (1936) and Polly Barton’s Porn: An Oral History (2023). -/- O presente artigo (...) tem por objetivo elaborar uma tentativa de compreender o papel da pornografia através de algumas instâncias, nomeadamente da obra de arte e da tecnologia. Compreender como a obra de arte passou de uma posição erótica para uma posição pornográfica com motivações explicitamente políticas. Para isso, temos como principal referência o texto de Walter Benjamin, A obra de arte na era de sua reprodutibilidade técnica (1936) e o texto de Polly Barton, Porn: An Oral History (2023). (shrink)

A briefing of the book "Darwinland" , America Star, 2014.

Martin Heidegger planteó un contraste fundamental entre el pensamiento auténtico y el ámbito de la opinión en la esfera pública. Este conflicto se expresa en la crítica de Ser y tiempo al fenómeno del “uno” como escenario inapropiado para el verdadero filosofar, y en la denuncia de la metafísica occidental en la Carta sobre el humanismo como basada en una tecnificación del pensamiento. Explorar los posibles vínculos entre estas ideas y la participación de Heidegger en el nacionalsocialismo puede refinar la (...) discusión sobre la relación entre política y filosofía en el pensamiento de Heidegger. En concreto, puede conducir a la identificación de una noción implícita de lo político en su pensamiento. (shrink)

Theories and ideas have consequences, like actions do. As a rule, we hold people responsible for their actions. In a similar way, we should reasonably hold intellectuals responsible for their theories and ideas. Among the aims of this paper is to consider whether the fact that Nietzsche’s thought was distorted and manipulated by Fascist and Nazi ideologues is a sufficient condition for releasing Nietzsche from all responsibility for the crimes that were partly justified through the appeal to his philosophy.

This article derives from a project attempting to show that Western formal logic, from Aristotle onward, has both been partially constituted by, and partially constitutive of, what has become known as racism. In the present article, I will first discuss, in light of Frege’s honorary role as founder of the philosophy of mathematics, Reuben Hersh’s What is Mathematics, Really? Second, I will explore how the infamous section of Frege’s 1924 diary (specifically the entries from March 10 to April 9) supports (...) Hersh's claim regarding the link between political conservatism and the (historically and currently) dominant school of the philosophy of mathematics (to which Frege undeniably belongs). Third, I will examine Frege’s attempt at a more reader-friendly introduction to his philosophy of mathematics, The Foundations of Arithmetic. And finally, I will briefly analyze Frege’s Begriffsschrift to see how questions of race arise even at the heights of his logical abstraction. (shrink)

This paper primarily examines the biography of Hans Jonas from the perspectives of identity and “othering”. Originally a sociological concept associated with a person’s or group’s identity, it has more recently become a central concept in philosophy as well. The paper investigates Jonas’s national identity, in relation to corresponding processes of othering, as well as his linguistic identity. Despite the profound traumas he endured – most notably the Shoah, which claimed his mother’s life – Jonas maintained his German linguistic identity. (...) Perhaps this was also the decisive reason why he decided to bequeath his scholarly estate to the Philosophical Archive at the University of Konstanz. (shrink)

This paper considers the thought and personal history of Carl Schmitt, who was a German legal scholar, philosopher, and member of the Nazi Party. Schmitt's thought emphasizes concrete order and captures politics sharply. The fact that he joined the Nazi Party after having strongly criticized them can also be interpreted as a consistent devotion to concrete order. The scarcity of his defense during his trial can also be considered as him having taken responsibility for his decision. In this interpretation, Schmitt (...) paid a great risk and carried through his thought. It is rare for a thinker to be self-referential toward their own thought. And it should be recognized that the concrete order of post-war Germany exists upon such thoughts of Schmitt. (shrink)

Human rights have made mass murder and genocide more, rather than less, likely. Posted 21 December 2022. A previous version of this paper appears as chapter 3 of my Patriotic Elaborations: Essays in Practical Philosophy (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009).

"Lukács 1933-1942. Irrationalism in the Age of Fascism". This essay reconstructs the philosophical and historiographical premises to Georg Lukács’ research on irrationalism conducted during the period of Nazi rule in Germany. To this end, the Author focuses chiefly on two posthumous works: How Did Fascist Philosophy Arise in Germany? (1933) and How Did Germany Become the Centre of reactionary Ideology? (1941-1942). After a brief historical contextualization, the Author illustrates the main purpose of these texts: to free German philosophy and culture (...) between the XIX and XX century from those irrationalistic elements asserted and nourished by Fascist philosophy. He then analyzes Lukács’ concept of reason in its three fundamental aspects, namely the methodological link with Marx’s historical image of the political development of Europe during the XIX century, the theoretical debt to Hegel’s critique of immediacy and the connection with some ethical points already discussed during the Goethezeit. (shrink)

Este texto procura lançar luz sobre um aspecto frequentemente negligenciado da era nazista: a criação de bordéis em diversos campos de concentração. Bordéis foram estabelecidos em oito campos ao todo: Mauthausen (1942), Auschwitz (1943), Buchenwald (1943), Dachau (1944), Dora-Mittelbau (1944), Sachsenhausen (1944), Neuengamme (1944) e Flossenbürg (1943-1944). O foco deste estudo será o campo de concentração de Mauthausen, localizado nas proximidades de Linz, na Alta Áustria. Embora numerosos aspectos da ideologia e das práticas nazistas tenham sido amplamente explorados, as dimensões (...) sexuais do regime permanecem, em grande parte, ignoradas — muitas vezes em razão de uma combinação entre o pudor dos investigadores e a escassez de fontes primárias, como relatos em primeira mão das mulheres submetidas a esses bordéis. Este estudo tem como objetivo examinar criticamente o uso da exploração sexual e de dispositivos de poder como instrumentos de dominação e controle no interior do regime nazista, particularmente no contexto dos campos de concentração. Dentro desse escopo, buscaremos apoiar-nos no aporte teórico de Hannah Arendt e Michel Foucault. Ao analisar tais práticas, o artigo pretende revelar de que maneira a violência sexual funcionava como ferramenta para reforçar a autoridade do regime e subjugar suas vítimas. -/- This text seeks to shed light on an aspect of the Nazi era that has been frequently neglected: the establishment of brothels in several concentration camps. Brothels were created in a total of eight camps: Mauthausen (1942), Auschwitz (1943), Buchenwald (1943), Dachau (1944), Dora-Mittelbau (1944), Sachsenhausen (1944), Neuengamme (1944), and Flossenbürg (1943–1944). The focus of this study will be the Mauthausen concentration camp, located near Linz in Upper Austria. Although numerous aspects of Nazi ideology and practices have been extensively explored, the sexual dimensions of the regime remain largely ignored—often due to a combination of scholarly reticence and the scarcity of primary sources, such as firsthand accounts from the women subjected to these brothels. This study aims to critically examine the use of sexual exploitation and mechanisms of power as instruments of domination and control within the Nazi regime, particularly in the context of concentration camps. Within this scope, the analysis will draw on the theoretical contributions of Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault. By examining these practices, the article seeks to reveal how sexual violence functioned as a tool to reinforce the regime’s authority and to subjugate its victims. -/- Dieser Text versucht, einen häufig vernachlässigten Aspekt der NS-Ära zu beleuchten: die Einrichtung von Bordellen in verschiedenen Konzentrationslagern. Insgesamt wurden Bordelle in acht Lagern errichtet: Mauthausen (1942), Auschwitz (1943), Buchenwald (1943), Dachau (1944), Dora-Mittelbau (1944), Sachsenhausen (1944), Neuengamme (1944) und Flossenbürg (1943–1944). Der Schwerpunkt dieser Studie liegt auf dem Konzentrationslager Mauthausen, das sich in der Nähe von Linz in Oberösterreich befindet. Obwohl zahlreiche Aspekte der Ideologie und Praktiken des NS-Regimes umfassend erforscht wurden, bleiben die sexuellen Dimensionen des Regimes weitgehend unbeachtet – oft aufgrund einer Kombination aus der Zurückhaltung der Forschenden und dem Mangel an Primärquellen, wie etwa Augenzeugenberichten der Frauen, die diesen Bordellen ausgesetzt waren. Ziel dieser Untersuchung ist es, die Nutzung sexueller Ausbeutung und von Machtmechanismen als Instrumente der Kontrolle und Unterdrückung im Kontext der Konzentrationslager kritisch zu analysieren. Innerhalb dieses Rahmens stützen wir uns auf die theoretischen Beiträge von Hannah Arendt und Michel Foucault. Durch die Analyse dieser Praktiken soll aufgezeigt werden, inwiefern sexuelle Gewalt als Mittel zur Stärkung der Autorität des Regimes und zur Unterwerfung seiner Opfer diente. (shrink)

This paper proposes a mathematical and physical model of laughter, understood as an interference phenomenon between order and disorder. The study integrates psychology and sociology, and compares Western and Japanese traditions of humor. Western comedy (e.g., Saturday Night Live, Monty Python, the Marx Brothers) of- ten emphasizes political satire and authority critique, while Japanese comedy (e.g., Nakagawake, Kenkoba, Cream Stew) highlights the disruption of everyday life. De- spite these differences, both can be represented by the same formal structure. Fur- thermore, (...) laughter is examined as a cultural mechanism that functions not only as entertainment but also as a deterrent against authoritarianism, extreme right-wing regimes, and conspiracy movements such as QAnon. In this sense, laughter con- stitutes a structural counterforce, preserving social health by relativizing authority and exposing absurdity. (shrink)

This paper provides a structural analysis of religion as a cycle of artifi- cialization, antithesis, and stabilization (Aufhebung). Tracing the develop- ment from Judaism through Christianity, Catholic institutionalization, the Franciscan poverty debate, the Protestant Reformation, and the Vatican’s role in modern history, we argue that religious institutions oscillate between charismatic origins and artificial hierarchies. The Vatican’s cooperation with fascism and its later stabilization highlight both the dangers and resilience of artificial religion.

In this thesis I try to evaluate the risks and potentials of modern and archaic myths for human existence in a holistical approach. After Adorno's and Horkheimer's critique that enlightment would still be mythical the positive aspects of myth and ancient religion were - with a few exceptions (i.g. Blumenberg, Eliade) - mostly neglected: In the analysis of Critical Theory myth only serves power, its misuse in fashist and capitalistic societies is inevitable; therefore any hint of mythological structures needs to (...) be destroyed. Even so, myth as one of the first tools of sensemaking had made sure that humanity clings to life through entire history. In the words of Baudrillard and Blumenberg, mythical (and, further on, religious and rationalistic) icons preserves their followers to get in touch with an overwhelming reality. The mythical tills the world as an factual entity and, in the cultural aspect, as an entity shapeable by "our" collective power. With the evidence given of increasing difficulties for finding "Bedeutsamkeit" (Blumenberg) in individual life, the bivalency of myth illustrates a promising oppurtunity for individual and existential sensemaking. (shrink)

In his recently published posthumous works "Prefiguration" and "The Rigorism of Truth" Hans Blumenberg surprisingly steps into the area of political history that he had left widely unconsidered in "Work on Myth". While "Prefiguration" tackles the “demonic” aspects of Napoleon and Hitler that Blumenberg tries to dismantle and bring into derision, in "Rigorism of Truth" he attacks Hannah Arendt's phrase of the Banality of Evil in relation to the Jerusalem trial against Adolf Eichmann in 1961. In this latter issue Blumenberg (...) defends the demonic he sees culminated in the form of Eichmann to assert what he calls the “mythical dimension“ in the Israeli process of nation-building. To him, Eichmann represents a prototypical demon incarnate that must be slaughtered by the heroic character seen in young state Israel. This obviously turns Blumenberg's criticism of Napoleon and Hitler into an affirmation of political myths that, on the face of it, appears to be a contradiction in terms. The essay focuses on this theoretical tension and tries to point out that significance (“Bedeutsamkeit”) is not only a necessity for individual self-assertion (“Selbstbehauptung”) but also a category of communality that must be handled with care. (shrink)

This is a critical review of David Patterson's book Anti-Semitism and Its Metaphysical Origins (2015). In this review, I present the author's new explanation of the roots of anti-Semitism, which he finds in the anti-Semite's desire to become like God himself. Patterson's explanation makes an anti-Semite of all those who partake in the "Western rationalist project," especially philosophers (including Jewish philosophers such as Spinoza, Hermann Cohen, and Marx), but also Islamists and anti-Zionist Jews. I criticize Patterson on two fronts: First, (...) his "metaphysical" explanation relies on a petitio principii. Second, he should have argued his stance against that of Zeev Sternhell's thesis, according to which Western anti-Semitism is rooted, not in Western rationalism, but rather in the Western anti-rationalist (anti-Enlightenment) movement. (shrink)