scholarly journals The Open Constructed Public Sphere: Aeschylus’ The Suppliant Women in a Version by David Greig

Humanities ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 21
Author(s):  
Verónica Rodríguez
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Public Place ◽  
Jürgen Habermas ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
The Public ◽  
Porous Model ◽  
Chantal Mouffe ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Individual

This article looks at the ‘public’ ‘place’ of drama in Britain at present by offering an analysis of a contemporary version of an ancient Greek play by Aeschylus, entitled The Suppliant Women, written by David Greig, directed by Ramin Gray, and first performed at the Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh in 2016. Following an agonistic (Chantal Mouffe), rather than a consensual (Jürgen Habermas) model of the public sphere, it argues that under globalisation, three cumulative and interwoven senses of the public sphere, the discursive, the spatial, and the individual and his/her/their relation to a larger form of organisation, despite persisting hegemonic structures that perpetuate their containment, have become undone. This is the kind of unbounded model of public sphere Greig’s version of Aeschylus’ The Suppliant Women seems to suggest by precisely offering undoings of discourses, spaces, and individualisations. In order to frame the first kind of undoing, that is, the unmarking of theatre as contained, the article uses Christopher Balme’s notion of ‘open theatrical public sphere’, and in order to frame the second, that is, the undoing of elements ‘in’ Greig’s version, the article utilises Greig’s concept of ‘constructed space’. The article arrives then at the notion of the open constructed public sphere in relation to The Suppliant Women. By engaging with this porous model of the public sphere, The Suppliant Women enacts a protest against exclusionary, reductive models of exchange and organisation, political engagement, and belonging under globalisation.

scholarly journals Konflikt jako wartość? Demokracja agonistyczna a populizm europejski w ujęciu Chantal Mouffe

2018 ◽  
pp. 219-233
Author(s):  
Filip Biały
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Irrational Beliefs ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
The Public ◽  
Chantal Mouffe ◽  
Emotional Component ◽  
Agonistic Democracy ◽  
The Public Sphere

One of the most intriguing questions in political philosophy has long been the following: how to organize politics that not only appeases the conflict of groups and individuals but also allows to express even irrational beliefs. The answer that this article has dealt with is a proposition by Chantal Mouffe, called ‘agonistic democracy’. The concept is based on an claim that the exclusion of an emotional component from the public sphere can only lead to a political conflict. An example that confirms Mouffe’s assumptions is the expansion of European populism, which, according to the theory discussed in the article, may only be contained through recognizing the positive value of the conflictive nature of politics.

scholarly journals The Normativity of Habermas’s Public Sphere from the Vantage Point of Its Evolution

2019 ◽  
pp. 47-65
Author(s):  
Maciej Hułas
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Private Property ◽  
The Public ◽  
Age Of Reason ◽  
Unique Character ◽  
Classical Setting ◽  
Bourgeois Culture ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Individual

The paper argues that the original normativity that provides the basis for Habermas’s model of the public sphere remains untouched at its core, despite having undergone some corrective alterations since the time of its first unveiling in the 1960s. This normative core is derived from two individual claims, historically articulated in the eighteenth-century’s “golden age” of reason and liberty as both sacred and self-evident: (1) the individual right to an unrestrained disposal of one’s private property; and (2) the individual right to formulate one’s opinion in the course of public debate. Habermas perceives the public sphere anchored to these two fundamental freedoms/rights as an arena of interactive opinion exchange with the capacity to solidly and reliably generate sound reason and public rationality. Despite its historical and cultural attachments to the bourgeois culture as its classical setting, Habermas’s model of the public sphere, due to its universal normativity, maintains its unique character, even if it has been thoroughly reformulated by social theories that run contrary to his original vision of the lifeworld, organized and ruled by autonomous rational individuals.     

Politicizing Solidarity in Times of Crisis: The Politics of Alternative Action Organizations in Greece, Italy, and Spain

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (6) ◽  
pp. 796-815 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Zamponi ◽  
Lorenzo Bosi
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Social Solidarity ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Public ◽  
Alternative Action ◽  
Visible Effect ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Individual

Alternative action organizations (AAOs) are collective bodies engaged in carrying out alternatives to dominant socioeconomic and cultural practices through actions that aim to provide people with alternative ways of enduring day-to-day difficulties and challenges in hard economic times. They are often interpreted as merely “philanthropic” actors, although it is not rare to see them go beyond the provision of direct services to people in need and end up pursuing political goals through political means. This article focuses on the process of politicization, that is, the transition of issues from the private to the public sphere and thus the use of public forms of contention (e.g., protest) proposing public solutions at the collective level instead of private solutions at the individual level. We argue for the role of the crisis in the politicization of AAOs. In particular, we show that the appropriation of the context as a context of economic crisis in the discourse of AAOs has a visible effect on their politicization, in terms of both repertoire of actions and goals. Furthermore, we show that social solidarity organizations, those that are not inherently politicized, are the main protagonists of this crisis-triggered transition. The article draws on statistical analysis of the data collected through the coding of AAOs’ websites in Greece, Italy, and Spain.

What Scope for Ethics in the Public Sphere? Principled Autonomy and the Antinomy of Practical Reason

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 485-498
Author(s):  
Maureen Junker-Kenny
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Jürgen Habermas ◽  
The Public ◽  
Jurgen Habermas ◽  
The Public Sphere

Concepts of ‘public reason’ vary according to the underlying understandings of theoretical and practical reason; they make a difference to what can be argued for in the public sphere as justified expectations to oneself and fellow-citizens. What is the significance for the scope of ethics when two neo-Kantian theorists of public reason, John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas, propose a reduced reading of the ‘antinomy’ highlighted in Kant’s analysis of practical reason? The desire for meaning, unrelinquishable for humans, is frustrated when moral initiatives are met with hostility. Kant resolves the antinomy between morality and happiness by invoking the concept of a creator God whose concern that our anticipatory moral actions should not fail encourages the hope on which human agency relies. Defining the scope of ethics by the unconditional character of reason ( Vernunft) rules out the minimisation of ethics to what can safely be expected to be delivered.

Member of a school or exponent of a paradigm? Jürgen Habermas and critical theory

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 252-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Müller-Doohm
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Communication Theory ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Jürgen Habermas ◽  
The Public ◽  
Jurgen Habermas ◽  
Constitutional State ◽  
The Public Sphere

The label ‘Frankfurt School’ became popular in the ‘positivism dispute’ in the mid-1960s, but this article shows that it is wrong to describe Jürgen Habermas as representing a ‘second generation’ of exponents of critical theory. His communication theory of society is intended not as a transformation of, but as an alternative to, the older tradition of thought represented by Adorno and Horkheimer. The novel and innovative character of Habermas’s approach is demonstrated in relation to three thematic complexes: (1) the public sphere and language; (2) democracy and the constitutional state; and (3) system and lifeworld as categories for a theory of modernity.

O PRINCÍPIO KANTIANO DA PUBLICIDADE NA MORAL E NO DIREITO

2010 ◽  
Vol 36 (115) ◽  
pp. 285
Author(s):  
José N. Heck
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Modern Concept ◽  
Urban Centers ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Public ◽  
German Philosopher ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Individual

A moderna concepção de indivíduo justifica-se na esfera pública. O termo publicidade remonta ao modo privado de pensar, no século XVIII, por parte de pessoas que tinham o costume, à maneira iluminista, de ler livros, eram rotineiramente informadas por jornais, criavam associações de leitura e freqüentavam espaços comuns de lazer em cafés, salões e parques, onde à época eram discutidas novas idéias advindas de longe, oriundas dos grandes centros urbanos com universidades centenárias. Esta congruência entre uso privado e público da razão, Kant a contrapõe a um uso específico de razão, privativo a pessoas que exercem funções e cumprem ordens em obediência a comandos superiores, como é o caso dos funcionários públicos; ou seja, na contramão do emprego hoje usual da palavra, o filósofo alemão predica à denominação uso privado aquele que o sábio pode fazer de sua razão em um certo cargo público ou função a ele confiada. Kant estabelece, ao longo de sua obra, o princípio da publicidade como a âncora legitimadora de sua filosofia moral, política e jurídica.Abstract: The modern concept of the individual is justified in the public sphere. The term publicity first appeared in the 18th century to describe the private manner of thinking of those who, following the general enlightenment custom, were used to reading books. These people were kept regularly informed by journals; created reading associations and frequented shared leisure areas in cafés, salons and parks where new ideas coming from afar, originated in the great urban centers with century-old universities, were discussed. Kant opposes this congruency between the public and private uses of reason to a specific use of reason, particular to those who fulfill functions and obey superior orders, as is the case of civil servants. Contrary to the normal usage of the word today, the German philosopher recognizes in the term private use that which the scholar can do with reason in a certain public office or function confided to him. Throughout his work, Kant establishes the principle of publicity as a legitimate anchor for his moral, political and juridical philosophy.

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