The question of time is frequently relegated by many philosophers, especially those dealing with politics and ethics. This is not to say that they do not address it in their own fashion. The mannerisms of time have been characterized in many ways; as history, as progressive, as deterministic, as emancipatory, categorical, and dialectical. Yet the question of time's nature, its essence outside of our historical understandings, has been passed off as a question for speculation and perhaps theoretical physics. Theoretical physics in the past century has developed a conception of time synthesized dimensionally with space as space-time, a conception which is radically different from the Newtonian model which had such an impact on thinkers from Hume to Kant.
And yet, the impacts of this re-conceptualization have yet to be fully felt in philosophy, in no small part because the methodology and mathematical explications of physics have developed to such a point that the complexities of its language and models demand both extensive training and great creativity. None the less it is undeniably strange that this re-conceptualization has had such little impact, for the Newtonian concept of time, derived in no small part from Aristotle's, has had an immense impact on philosophy in all of its disciplines. The renunciation of this model in science has not resulted in the subsequent collapse of those philosophical models which knowingly or unknowingly are constructed on or around this foundation.
This can largely by attributed to the sensibleness of the Newtonian idea; that the universe operates in the same temporal sphere. Time is considered an independent universal category like space, and thus is fixed and can be measured regardless of one's position in the cosmos. Our reality is encompassed in time, floating through it like a pebble down the stream, or a train along a track. Indeed, these metaphors have become so pervasive that who would bother to deny the validity of those philosophical models which are constructed around it? To do so would seem both impractical, especially for an ethicist whom must deal so intimately with the immediate psychology of man, and unreasonably arduous.
And yet, in denying the importance of the question of time, we deny the importance of a force whose effect on mankind is incalculable in ways both open and closed to our understanding. Indeed, so important is this question that Heidegger famously dismisses the relevance of space as a cognitive category, instead maintaining that it is Dasein`s relationship with time that must be explored to understand man's relationship with others, and more generally, with Being. The way in which we project ourselves is not understood unless we understand the cognitive temporal field in which that projection takes place. More importantly for our purposes, the relationship of man to Being, and thus to knowledge/power and language cannot be understood unless we understand the temporal nature in which we regard ourselves as existing and projecting ourselves.
Einstein himself says our classic conception of time,
"That we have not been accustomed to regard the world in this sense as a four-dimensional continuum is due to the fact that in physics, before the advent of the theory of relativity, time played a different and more independent role…The four-dimensional mode of consideration of the "world" is natural on the theory of relativity, since according to this theory time is robbed of its independence."
Indeed, modern physics argues that so important is the understanding of time that it shapes our conception and knowledge of the world not only from a social standpoint, but a physical one as well. Scientists now believe that matter as we know it is energy, and energy matter. Which one it is depends entirely on the manner in which we choose to temporalize it. Materialism, it would appear, and the logical-analytic approach to understanding language and knowledge associated with it, has been disproved by its own mathematical methodology of quantification. This is not however to suggest a return to Husserlian influenced philosophy of consciousness where mere cognition attains lexical primacy, but rather emphasizes the need to analyze the bicameral relationship of thought to thought's object in a Kantian fashion.
We would be wise to look carefully at how the systems of modern physics can act as a clue to resolving the issue of knowledge/power reinforcement through language, and ultimately serve to emancipate human beings from its discipline. Indeed, the traditional conception of time, far from simply concealing these problems, reinforces and perpetuates them in the broadest sense possible. So pervasive and powerful is the common sense conception of time that it makes difficult even the possibility of overcoming the structures of knowledge/power that are premised on these same conceptions.
If this sounds farfetched, that is because we are so entirely convinced of the rightness and sense of these concepts that we rarely even ponder the mysterious sway they have over our thoughts. But one need only look at the many ways a concept of time guides our most intimate wisdom. Whenever one says "they have only one life to live," that this is "their time" or that something has "passed," the Newtonian conception shows its sway.
Contrasted to this is the cyclical concept of time and life prevalent in the Buddhist and Hindu cultures—a concept which encourages self reflection and examination of an entirely different sort than that conducted by many of the intellectuals in the West, whose metaphysics concerns distinction and analytic distillation of moments and lives. This is not to say that the cyclical concept of time is philosophically or scientifically more correct than the linear one; however, its value lies in the fact that it dynamically stresses that the past, present and future are never distinct from one another, a wisdom which is largely missing in traditional Western metaphysics.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves; in illustrating culturally the power the idea of time holds over us we have moved to a normative assessment of these concepts prematurely. Before assessing the power of these concepts we must ask: what is their genealogy?
Aristotle, in his seminal Physics describes time as such.
"Hence time is not a movement, but only movement in so far as it admits of enumeration. A proof of this: we discriminate the more of the less by number, but more or less movement by time. Time then is a kind of number. (Number we must note, is used in two senses—both of what is counted or the countable, and also of that which we count. Time obviously is what is counted, not that with which we count: these are different kinds of thing."
St Augustine does not deviate significantly from this model, though he understands far better than Aristotle the significance the idea of temporality plays in our lives. He famously wrestled intensely with the limitations of this idea of time at the end of the Confessions, a struggle we have yet to emulate significantly in contemporary society.
"What then is time? If no one asks me, I know: if I wish to explain it to one that asketh, I know not: yet I say boldly, that I know, that if nothing passed away, time past were not; and if nothing were coming, a time to come were not, and if nothing were, time present were not. Those two times then, past and to come, how are they, seeing past now is not, and that to come is not? But the present, should it always be present, and never pass into time past, verily it should not be time, but eternity."
None the less, he endorsed the linear model, in no small part because it accommodated so well the theology that God ordained a beginning and an end to time, during which the free activity of humankind would play its part in the ordained divine plan. At the culmination of his plan, this temporal reality would vanish with the return of Christ, and the eternal City of God would replace the decadent City of Man. This sense of passing away, of temporal progression, has framed Western ontology for millennia.
Newton, who was a deeply pious Christian, transformed our concepts of motion and quantity, but did not move significantly from the Aristotelian-Christian model of time, except to universalize it as encompassing the whole of an increasingly complex universe; much like a shell encompasses an egg.
This model of time was unchallenged until Einstein, who revolutionarily argued that, far from being universal, time as traditionally conceived was relative. The Special Theory of Relativity showed the immensely artificial nature of our ideas of temporality through a sequence of brilliant mathematical formulations and thought experiments. He illustrated that space and time were fundamentally connected, so much so that they only appeared distinct from the relative point of view of a given place in totality of reality. The General Theory of Relativity expanded this idea significantly by maintaining that all matter-energy was simply a manifestation of space-time itself, the points we see ourselves occupying shaping our perception of our spatio-temporal identity within the totality. None the less, the truth of time, and the ability to visualize this totality, will likely remain a distant ambition for pure physics.
As a consequence of his conclusions, Einstein was deeply deterministic. However, his determinism was distinct from Newtonian determinism, which was based solely on the idea of linear causal relations, the law of reactivity. Einsteinian determinism maintained that this idea of linear causal relationships is overly narrow. Time does not flow, and neither therefore do events take place in a linear sequence. Space-time is organic and internally dynamic—indeed Heidegger best characterizes the new idea of time as a giving in his famous essay on Time and Being as ecstatic.
"Approaching, being not yet present, at the same time gives and brings about what is no longer present, the past, and conversely what has been offers future to itself. The reciprocal relation of both at the same time gives and brings about the present. We say 'at the same time' and thus ascribe a time character to the mutual giving to one another of future, past and present, that is, to their own unity."
Despite this, in no small part because of our inability to perceive ecstatic time, but only understand it mathematically, the traditional conception articulated by Aristotle and his disciples remains prevalent. What are the consequences of this to our understanding?
History has been characterized by thinkers from Aristotle onwards as a sequential force. While more creative thinkers, from Hegel to Nietzsche, have understood that the past does not necessarily disappear just as the future does not simply arrive, it is still largely understood sequentially. Indeed, the dialectical process of Hegel can be characterized as not just horizontally immanent, but vertically as well. Spirit, as conceptualized by the thinker, at every level of its manifestations, is evolving through the resolution of its contradictions to a purity, at which point time itself will end having reached the point at which it can progress no further.
"The absolute Idea, as the rational Notion that in its reality meets only with itself, is by virtue of this immediacy of its objective identity, on the one hand the return to life; but it has no less sublated this form of its immediacy, and contains within itself the highest degree of opposition. The notion is not merely soul, but free subjective Notion that is for itself and therefore possesses personality-the practical, objective Notion determined in and for itself which, as person, is impenetrable atomic subjectivity—but which, none the less is not exclusive individuality, but explicitly universality and cognition, and its other has its own objectivity for its object. All else is error, confusion, opinion, caprice and transitoriness; the absolute Idea alone is being, imperishable life, self-knowing truth, and is all truth."
However, both Hegel and Nietzsche were well aware of the vacuity of this linear concept, though Hegel built his entire system around it, and Nietzsche employed it with his genealogical method.
Hegel, like his predecessor Kant, understood that this process of temporality, which spirit observes and participates in, was categorical rather than empirical. Like Plato, his ontology was premised on a scale of reality, with those lower spheres where linear time is violent in its manifestations possessing less reality because they were less complete than those at a higher level. While Hegel understood their importance, he felt that philosophers must understand the transition away from the dialectical method itself, with the ultimate aim being the attainment of absolute knowledge outside of time which could only reflect on itself. Once this aim was achieved, it was possible to see the process which came before, for all its complexity, as merely the unfolding of necessary transitory unreality.
However, Hegel felt that this understanding of temporality's falseness could only be achieved by progressing through temporality dialectically—a paradox which is the fundamental characteristic of human, and indeed all, of existence. In this sense his thinking remains close to Augustine and the Christians, whom similarly felt that linear time existed simply for man to develop the spiritual capacities necessary for viewing eternity as God does. Hegel's arrival at absolute knowledge is, like the Second Coming of Jesus in Christianity, a return into that from which the past sprung, a return which signals the end of time. Time has fulfilled its eschatological function by allowing man to grasp the essence of God through first conceiving of it in fractured moments.
Nietzsche's conception of time is even more complex, in no small part due to his superior psychological analysis. Indeed, Nietzsche views temporality from several different viewpoints, well aware that, whatever their relative correctness, the impact different views of temporality can have on our "value positing" and "will to power" are hugely significant. Time, for Nietzsche, may be deconstructed linearly, when philosophizing with a hammer through the genealogical method. But this only serves to reinforce the vacuity of the linear model of time. Nietzsche was well aware that time, and the events which correspond with its conceived moments, never truly passes away. The idea of the "eternal recurrence of the same," perhaps his most profound interpretation of the subject of temporality, Nietzsche called in Thus Spoke Zarathustra the "heaviest thought." In fact, so important is Nietzsche's conception of time to his entire philosophy that Heidegger characterized the former's idea of the "eternal recurrence of the same" as the fundamental thought of his entire thinking.
"The eternal recurrence of the same is the supreme triumph of the metaphysics of the will that eternally wills its own willing. Delivering from revenge is the transition from the will's revulsion against time and its "It was," to the will that eternally wills the recurrence of the same and in this willing will itself as its own ground. Deliverance from revenge is the transition to the primal being of all beings."
The person who reconceptualized time, whom freed themselves from "revenge," from the idea of a mere past to which we are bound, would become the Superman, the long awaited individual whom willed only their own will. Nietzsche's entire philosophy was centered on the idea of individualization through understanding, by a genealogical deconstructive process, the past's presence within us, and thence recognizing its falseness and discarding it. Understanding time as not passing away, but persisting in our values, was a necessary prerequisite to their reconstitution by a truly individual being.
Nietzsche was concerned about the psychological toll this would take on his Superman, whom after all, was still human. He was well aware that the burden that came with willing one's own will would be immense, and was one which humanity was not necessarily prepared to bear, then or now. Nietzsche characterizes Zarathustra as the last man not simply because he is the man who will transcend the idea of revenge, but because humanity will now be faced with an unending task of repositing value upon the world as an individual.
This task would never end, but would face each human being, for eternity. It is this weight, and the diminution of progressive ideas of collective history, that Nietzsche called the "heaviest burden" which arose when one thought of the eternal recurrence of the same. In Part Four of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, entitled the Drunken Song, the titular prophet reflects on the necessity of the eternal recurrence to overcome the sadness of progressive life.
"Woe says 'Be gone! Away all woe!' But all that suffers wants to live, that it may become ripe and joyful and full of yearning.—yearning for what is farther, higher, brighter. 'I want heirs' says all that suffers. 'I want children, I do not want me'—But joy does not want heirs, nor children—joy wants itself, wants eternity, wants recurrence, wants all eternity self same. Woe says 'Break, bleed, heart! Wander leg! Wing fly! Onward! Upward pain!' Well then! Come now! Oh my old heart: Woe says be gone!"
The idea that each human being must will his own will each day, and that this process would continue on forever after the passing of the last man, was for Nietzsche the ultimate affirmation of a life lived for itself rather than for power. While like Hegel he understood the power and influence of historical spirit, especially as it manifested itself culturally as slave moralities, Nietzsche radically breaks with Hegel by arguing that, far from a necessary process, the highest goal of man must be to break from dialectics of history.
Like the arch-individualist Kierkegaard, whose work will be examined later in this paper, Nietzsche detested the Hegelian notion of freedom as being unrestrained in enacting ones role in the pattern of history. Instead mankind must embrace the artificiality of its notions as a form of will to power. The will to power at its highest was the will to will oneself, as opposed to having power, in all of its complexity, shape one's conceptions.
It was also the greatest burden, for it meant to Nietzsche that man must now live for himself, the responsible master of his entire existence, an existence which was shaped by a coming to be of everything, a universal will to power on the part of all creation. Nietzsche was well aware of the consequences his philosophy might have, which is why he spent the last years of his life planning a triumphant magnum opus, the Will To Power, which would provide mankind with a new morality to replace the one which was being undermined. However, this was never completed, and the notes his sister later published under the same title bear only passing resemblance to the systematized destruction of all systems envisioned by the philosopher.
However, despite his attempts to wrestle with the subject of time, and the radically different emphasis he places on it compared to the Ancients and even Hegel, Nietzsche's conception of temporality remains somewhat conservative. While disparaging of the idea of purely linear historical time in favour of the eternal recurrence of the same, his genealogical approach and even many of the positive elements of his philosophy retain many of the conditions of this paradigm. Specifically, he looks primarily to the past as that which shapes our current perceptions, and in doing so, sees time only from a certain angle, much as one only sees the rays of white light which enter a prism and then only the colours after. However, if a true process of authenticity is to be achieved, time must be understood ecstatically and the traditional understanding of teleology reformatted. Even from a cognitive point of view, we cannot deny the very present role the future plays in our development as human beings.Continued on Next Page »
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Endnotes
1.) See Heidegger, Martin. On Time and Being. Translated by Stambaugh, Joan, HarperCollins, Chicago, 1972
2.) Hawking, Stephen W. God Created the Integers. Running Press, Philadelphia 2007 at 1258
3.) Plato. The Republic and Other Works. Anchor Books, New York, 1989 at 136
4.) See Hume, David. An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals.Hackett Publishing Company Inc, United States, 1983
5.) Aristophanes and Plato. Four Texts on Socrates. Cornell University Press, United States, 1998 at 81
6.) Plato. The Republic and Other Works. Anchor Books, New York, 1989 at 226
7.) Aristotle. The Basic Works of Aristotle. The Modern Library, New York, 2001 at 957
8.) Kierkegaard, Soren. The Last Years: Journals 1853-1855. Fontana Books, Great Britain, 1967
9.) Augustine, Saint. Confessions. Duncan Baird Publishers, London, 2006 at 160
10.) Augustine, Saint. On Free Choice of the Will. Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, 1993
11.) Habermas, Jurgen. The Theory of Communicative Action Volume One: Reason and the Rationalization of Society. Beacon Press, Boston, 1984 at 225
12.) This is a thesis of interpretation that demands explanation. I shall treat the unusual nature of this more systematically in Section II.
13.) Hobbes, Thomas. The Leviathan. Penguin Books, England, 1985 CH 8
14.) Hobbes, Thomas. The Leviathan. Penguin Books, England, 1985 CH 15
15.) I have recently begun to take some of the ideas outlined here concerning time and its relationship to language and the question of Being in more exciting and abstract directions. While I still believe in the theoretic treatment given here, I have come to realize that it remains somewhat tied to traditionalist notions, which limits the scope of the ramifications I have drawn. I hope to treat this subject more expansively in some future work, and would welcome feedback to ensure it is of the highest quality.
16.) Habermas in particular remains somewhat historicist in his sociological treatment of the subject.
17.) Einstein, Albert. "Relativity: The Special and General Theory." Three Rivers Press, New York, 1961 at 62
18.) Aristotle. The Basic Works of Aristotle. The Modern Library, New York, 2001 at 292
19.) Augustine, Saint. Confessions. Duncan Baird Publishers, London, 2006 at 298
20.) Heidegger, Martin. On Time and Being. Translated by Stambaugh, Joan, HarperCollins, Chicago, 1972 at 14
21.) Hegel, Georg Willhelm. The Science of Logic. Humanities Press International, New Jersey, 1969 at 824
22.) Heidegger, Martin. What is Called Thinking? Translated by Gray, J. Glenn, Harper Torchbooks, United States, 2004 at 105
23.) Nietzsche, Frederich. Thus Spoke Zarathurstra. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005 at283-284
24.) One still under-rated thinker who did break from these conventions is Henry Bergson, in Introduction to Metaphysics, Creative Evolution and other books.
25.) Phillip, Wheelwright. The Presocratics. The Odyssey Press, Indianapolis, 1960 at 97
26.) Bohm, David. On Creativity. Routledge Classics, London, 2006 at 129
27.) Bohm, David Quantum Theory. Library of Congress, New York, 1979 at 155
28.) Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Dover, United States, 2003 at 28
29.) Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Dover, United States, 2003 at 32
30.) Wittgenstein, Ludwig. On Certainty. Harper Torchbooks, United States, 1969 at 52
31.) Wittgenstein, Ludwig. On Certainty. Harper Torchbooks, United States at 62
32.) Heidegger, Martin. What is Called Thinking? Translated by Gray, J. Glenn, Harper Torchbooks, United States at 224
33.) Foucault, Michel. The Archaeology of Knowledge. Routeledge, London and New York, 2007 at 146
34.) Foucault, Michel. The Archaeology of Knowledge. Routeledge, London and New York, 2007 at 111
35.) Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1996 at 37
36.) Zukav, Gary. The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics. Harper Collins Publishers, New York, 2001 at 344
37.) Foucault, Michel. The Archaeology of Knowledge. Routeledge, London and New York, 2007 at 191
38.) See the Introduction to Heidegger, Martin. Basic Writings. Harper San Francisco, United States, 1993
39.) Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Translated by Macquarrie, Jogn and Robinson, Edward, Harper Collins, San Franciso, 1962 at 26
40.) Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Translated by Macquarrie, Jogn and Robinson, Edward, Harper Collins, San Franciso, 1962 at 232-238
41.) As I have mentioned in my section on Time, my views on this have expanded somewhat, to consider the possibility of language as a medium of intersection between time as traditionally understood and eternity. In this I was inspired in no small part by David Bohm's concept of a dynamic language.
42.) Bacon, Francis. Essays. J.M Dent and Sons Limited, London, 1992
43.) Hobbes, Thomas. The Leviathan. Penguin Books, England, 1985 at 110
44.) Kierkegaard, Soren. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments. Princeton Press, United States, 1992
45.) Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, Routelege, London and New York, 2002, at 11
46.) Augustine, Saint. Confessions of a Sinner. Duncan Baird Publishers, London, 2006 at 15
47.) Wittgeinstein, Ludwig. The Philosophical Investigations. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, 2001 at 20-21
48.) Zizek, Slavoj. The Sublime Object of Ideology. Verso, London, 2008 at 59
49.) Bohm, David. On Creativity. Routledge Classics, London, 2006 at 15
50.) Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1996 at 122
51.) Kierkegaard, Soren. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments. Princeton Press, United States, 1992 at 390-391
52.) Kafka, Franz. The Trial. Penguin Books, England, 1994 at 164
53.) I would like to note here that I am reasoning according to the Kierkegaardian (we might say traditional) interpretation of Hegel as something of an absolutist. Throughout the course of preparing this work I have become aware of the pioneering work of Slavoj Zizek, who in the Sublime Object of Ideology and other books has been undertaking a fascinating a invaluable re-interpretation of Hegel as the philosopher who above all had respect for difference. While I disagree with Zizek crucially on this matter, there is no doubt much fruitful ground for debate here, and I look forward to addressing these important issues in a future work.
54.) Hegel, Georg Willhelm. Logic: Part I of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences., Oxford Press, Oxford, 1975 at 128
55.) Hegel, Georg Willhelm Fredrich. The Phenomenology of Spirit. Oxford University Press, United States, 1977 at 12
56.) Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Dover, United States, 2003 at 303
57.) Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Practical Reason. Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1985 at 114
58.) Hegel, Georg Willhelm. The Philosophy of Right. Prometheus Books, New York, 1996 at 270
59.) Hegel, Georg Willhelm. The Philosophy of Right. Prometheus Books, New York, 1996 at 154
60.) Hegel, Georg Willhelm. Logic: Part I of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences., Oxford Press, Oxford, 1975 at 119
61.) Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Frederich The Phenomenology of Spirit (Oxford University Press, United States, 1977) at 311
62.) Habermas, Jurgen. The Theory of Communicative Action Volume One: Reason and the Rationalization of Society. Beacon Press, Boston, 1984 at 256
63.) Popper, Karl. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. Routeledge, London and New York, 2002 at 94
64.) Quine, W.V Qunitessence (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2004) at 50
65.) See Foucault, Michel. "The Foucault Reader" Pantheon, United States, 1984
66.) Heidegger, Martin. The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. Harper and Row, United States, 1997 at 109
67.) Hegel, Georg Willhelm. The Philosophy of Right. Prometheus Books, New York, 1996 at 240
68.) Habermas, Jurgen. The Theory of Communicative Action Volume Two : Lifeworld and System; A Critique of Functionalist Reason Beacon Press, Boston, 1984 at 340
69.) Habermas, Jurgen. The Theory of Communicative Action Volume Two : Lifeworld and System; A Critique of Functionalist Reason Beacon Press, Boston, 1984 at 355
70.) Habermas, Jurgen. The Theory of Communicative Action Volume Two : Lifeworld and System; A Critique of Functionalist Reason Beacon Press, Boston, 1984 at 397
71.) David Bohm's theory of implicate order is one promising source, dealing as it does with language, science and the connection between mind and world in a radically creative fashion. Another promising source is in the work of Alain Badiou, who is pioneering a return to philosophy as philosophy in works such as Being and Event, Conceptions, and others.
72.) Kierkegaard, Soren. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments. Princeton Press, United States, 1992 at 339
73.) Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Translated by Macquarrie, Jogn and Robinson, Edward, Harper Collins, San Franciso, 1962 at 1
74.) Kierkegaard, Soren. Philosophical Fragments: Or a Fragment of Philosophy. Princeton Press, New Jersey, 1962 at 45
75.) Kierkegaard, Soren. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments. Princeton Press, United States, 1992 at 190
76.) Kierkegaard, Soren. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments. Princeton Press, United States, 1992 at 224
77.) Hegel, Georg Willhelm. The Phenomenology of Spirit. Oxford University Press, United States, 1977 at 277
78.) Kierkegaard, Soren. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments. Princeton Press, United States, 1992 at 253
79.) Kierkegaard, Soren. The Sickness Unto Death. Penguin Books, London, 2008 at 40
80.) Kierkegaard, Soren. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments. Princeton Press, United States, 1992 at 328
81.) Kierkegaard, Soren. The Last Years: Journals 1853-1855. Fontana Books, Great Britain, 1967 at 152
82.) Heidegger, Martin. Discourse on Thinking. Harper and Row, San Francisco, 1966 at 46
83.) Heidegger, Martin. What is Called Thinking? Translated by Gray, J. Glenn, Harper Torchbooks, United States, 2004 at 244
84.) Habermas, Jurgen. The Theory of Communicative Action Volume Two : Lifeworld and System; A Critique of Functionalist Reason Beacon Press, Boston, 1984 at 98
85.) Habermas, Jurgen. The Theory of Communicative Action Volume Two : Lifeworld and System; A Critique of Functionalist Reason Beacon Press, Boston, 1984 at 75
86.) Habermas, Jurgen. The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. MIT Press, Massachusetts, 1987 at 137
87.) Habermas, Jurgen. The Theory of Communicative Action Volume One: Reason and the Rationalization of Society. Beacon Press, Boston, 1984 at 287
88.) Habermas, Jurgen. The Theory of Communicative Action Volume Two : Lifeworld and System; A Critique of Functionalist Reason Beacon Press, Boston, 1984 at 75
89.) Habermas, Jurgen. The Theory of Communicative Action Volume One: Reason and the Rationalization of Society. Beacon Press, Boston, 1984 at 389-391
90.) [90] Habermas, Jurgen. Between Facts and Norms. MIT Press, Massachusetts, 1998 at 121
91.) Carroll, Lewis. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Puffin, England 1997 at 237.
92.) It might appear more sensible, given the critique of calculative and instrumental reason which pervades much of this work to have focused more on Mills' theory, given its strong utilitarian justification and general employment of these methods. However, Rawls' book offers more fruitful discourse since much of it is taken over to justifying many of the same principles through a different, largely deontological, methodology. It must therefore be shown how even this powerful variant of liberalism is tied to the conjectures of modernity I have traced prior, or new one's of its own making, if we are to move past them.
93.) Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Harvard University Press, Massachusetts, 2001 at 519-520
94.) Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Harvard University Press, Massachusetts, 2001 at 302
95.) Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Harvard University Press, Massachusetts, 2001 at 102
96.) Rawls, John. "A Theory of Justice." Harvard University Press, Massachusetts, 2001 at 565
97.) Kant, Immanuel. The Metaphysics of Morals. Cambridge, New York, 1996 at 30
98.) Rawls, John. "A Theory of Justice." Harvard University Press, Massachusetts, 2001 at 17
99.) The book has been cited as rejuvenating the Anglo-American tradition of political philosophy, and has been called the most influential theory since those of Sidgwick and Mills.
100.) Rawls, John. Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2001 at 89
101.) Rawls, John. Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2001 at 202
102.) Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Harvard University Press, Massachusetts, 2001 at 388
103.) Dyzenhaus, David. Liberalism After the Fall. Philosophy & Social Criticism, Vol. 22, No. 3, 9-37, 1996 at 2
104.) Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Harvard University Press, Massachusetts, 2001 at 352
105.) Dyzenhaus, David. Liberalism After the Fall. Philosophy & Social Criticism, Vol. 22, No. 3, 9-37, 1996 at 16
106.) Dyzenhaus, David. Liberalism After the Fall. Philosophy & Social Criticism, Vol. 22, No. 3, 9-37, 1996 at 17
107.) Schmitt, Carl. The Concept of the Political: Expanded Edition. The University of Chicago Press,Chicago and London, 2007 at 93
108.) Habermas somewhat esoterically traces the democratic tradition as far back as Aristotle, echoing Arendt's sympathetic treatment of the polis. I feel the treatment of democracy is that thinker is more contentious than they grant, especially given the strong perfectionist orientation in the Nichomachean Ethics and other works, and so choose to trace the genealogy from Rousseau instead, whose theory of will formation powerfully blends the modern and ancient values.
109.) Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Harrvard University Press, Massachusetts, 2001 at 565
110.) See Rawls, John. The Idea of Public Reason Revisited
111.) An excellent example might be the Harper Government's recent decision to prorogue Parliament in spite of majority opposition protests.
112.) Habermas, Jurgen. Between Facts and Norms. MIT Press, Massachusetts, 1998 at 409
113.) This should not be confused with the Prelude to the Metaphysic of Morals, which is Kant's more famous piece outlining the foundations of what is now known as deontology. What I am referring to is Kant's belief that rights are meant to ensure a harmony of freedom and autonomy between citizens existing within the state, as articulated in Part I of the book, the Doctrine of Right.
114.) Habermas, Jurgen. Between Facts and Norms. MIT Press, Massachusetts, 1998 at 180
115.) I hesitate to characterize the debate more traditionally as between natural law theorists and positivism, since I do not believe the powerful contemporary theory of legal hermeneutics, best articulated as Dworkin's theory of law as integrity, is reducible to traditional natural law theorizing.
116.) He draws perhaps overmuch on continental sociologies, without acknowledging Rawls' worth wile arguments to the same affect in Part III of Theory.
117.) Schmitt, Carl. The Concept of the Political: Expanded Edition. The University of Chicago Press,Chicago and London, 2007
118.) Habermas, Jurgen. Between Facts and Norms. MIT Press, Massachusetts, 1998 at 182
119.) Zizek, Slavoj. The Fragile Absolute. Verso, London, 2007. I have also read his book the Sublime Object of Ideology, which has opened up the whole field of pycho-analysis for me. There are many congruencies between the critical approaches we take, and I hope to conduct a more thorough investigation in the future.
120.) Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Belknap Press, Massachusetts, 2005 at 118
121.) See Habermas, Jurgen. Between Facts and Norms. MIT Press, Massachusetts, 1998 Chapter 3.3
122.) Habermas, Jurgen. Between Facts and Norms. MIT Press, Massachusetts, 1998 at 263
123.) See Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Belknap Press, Massachusetts, 2005, Sen, Amartya Development as Freedom. Anchor, U.S.A, 2000. Henry Shue's doctrine of double edged rights is also promising.
124.) Habermas, Jurgen. Between Facts and Norms. MIT Press, Massachusetts, 1998 at 23.
