TIEDE & EDISTYS 1/2002 SUMMARIES

TUIJA PULKKINEN: Hannah Arendt on identity: modern or postmodern thinking?
The article discusses the tension between modern and postmodern themes in Hannah Arendt's work with special emphasis on the questions of identity. Does Arendt actually go, and how far does she go in the postmodern direction of conceiving identities as effects of repetitious actions without foundation, beginning, core or origin. How far does she actually follow the modern orientation towards foundations, first origins and new beginnings? Arendt's orientation is looked at in terms of various identity-issues: individual identity as well as gender and ethnicity as identities. The article argues that in Arendt's thought certain postmodern themes (storytelling, promising) merge with modern foundationalism. A core uniqueness of an individual ("who") is central in Arendt's  thought and it is tied to the fact of  birth. However, Arendt also uses "the birth" as referring to the social origin of a person, to family background, to class, to cultural heritage, and in many of Arendt's texts, discussed in the article, a link between corporeality and nationality appears. It is important to pay attention to which direction the Arendtian heritage is further developed: even if the "postmodernizing" interpretations are the most interesting ones, it is good to be aware of the very modern nature of much of Arendt's thought.

TANELI KUKKONEN: Mark C. Taylor and the trace of the secular. On the possibilities of theology after the death of God. This study traces the outlines of a persistent theological strand in the writings of Mark C. Taylor. In the 1980s Taylor was one of the first thinkers to attract attention to the theological implications, and possible (a/)theological applications, of Jacques Derrida's particular brand of deconstruction. In subsequent years, Taylor has moved more and more away from fields traditionally associated with theology and towards cultural theory and criticism. In the course of the 1990s Taylor has written on subjects ranging from art, fashion and phrenology to disease, virtual reality, and Las Vegas. A common theme running through these various efforts concerns the continued love affair the Western imagination shares with the opposite temptations of immanence and transcendence. In this paper I argue that this perspective provides the theologically minded with a continued challenge, even as it continues to challenge Taylor himself.

SAMI PIHLSTRÖM: The ideologies of science and the naturalized study of religion. This article discusses some problems related to the recently influential naturalized study of religion in the cognitivist paradigm, with reference to Ilkka Pyysiäinen's and some others' writings. More general implications of these problems in the philosophy of science are drawn regarding the role played by "ideologies", including anti-ideology, in scientific research. It is argued that a reductively naturalized approach in the study of religion (as in the humanities more generally) may lead to a narrow-minded perspective on a complex human phenomenon such as religious belief. Moreover, philosophical problems concerning truth, meaning, and understanding seem to reappear, even though the naturalistic researcher claims to produce only "neutral" scientific results through her/his research. This is briefly illustrated with some analogies taken from current philosophy of science.

TIEDE & EDISTYS 2/2002 SUMMARIES

Samuli Hurri: Orphic law and the state without poetry. This article starts by asking why was poetry expelled from Plato?s Republic. The question is interesting because it is commonly presumed that poetry is totally kept apart from the present state, at least from its rational core, the legal system. In this article poetry is first viewed in its aspects of imitation, enchantment and contradiction. Then all these aspects are considered from the point of view of Plato as a poet. In the end, the relation of poetry and state looks so different from how it appeared in the beginning that one could indeed talk about a certain Orphicism that underpins the legal mind.

Pauliina Remes: Open discussion and its enemies. One of the most unpleasant features of Plato´s utopian state is its heavily censured education that, furthermore, overlooks the ideals of open and frank speech prominent elsewhere in the dialogue. The article argues that the audacity of censuring Homer is meant to startle the reader. The dialogue presents two ideals of virtuous human beings. One is internally harmonious and free, the other a product of its surrounding culture and values. If Athenian democracy failed because it over-emphasized the first, Republic explores the dangers of concentrating on the manipulation of the latter, thus opening ways of incorporating both of them to a genuine understanding of what it is to be an agent and a self.

Anna Pietiläinen: Plato´s and Aristotle´s concept of justice. Plato´s and Aristotle´s thoughts are often presented as being representative of Greek culture. This seems a legitimate practice while the history of philosophy is discussed. Here, a different approach is adopted when looking at their political philosophy of justice. A cultural reading reveals what a universalistic reading conceals. True justice and happiness as determined by the ancient philosophers are possible only among members of a small elite. The concept of justice requires that the happiness of the majority of the population consists of supporting the happiness of the elite.

Miira Tuominen: Reason, its aspects, and apprehension of the Good in Plato´s philosophy. This article deals with Plato´s conception of reason and its ability to reach the Good. It is argued that Plato made a distinction between two different uses of reason, one that can be called discursive and the other non-discursive reasoning. Non-discursive reasoning involves apprehension of many different intelligible objects simultaneously in their interconnections with each other. It is shown that this kind of intellectual "vision" is vital to the human conception of the Good in Plato.

Taneli Kukkonen: The good and the just: Islam and the Classical tradition. The major Islamic philosophers were unanimous in thinking that the good and the just were objectively definable. Goodness was thought to involve an actualisation of potentialities; the just, that each existent assumes its rightful place. Both could be seen in the light of reason, which makes the philosopher the ideal lawgiver. However, not everyone is equipped to follow the deliberations of the philosopher-kind. This article examines some of the implications.

Toomas Kotkas: Socrates as liturgist ? a rehabilitation in the spirit of Levinas. Traditionally Socrates has been labelled as the founder of Western rationalism. The aim of the article is, however, to point out features that do not concur with this traditional interpretation. From the standpoint of Levinasian fundamental ethics, it is argued that there is in Socrates? story a dimension which opens itself towards the Other. This entitles us to call Socrates a liturgist.

TIEDE & EDISTYS 3/2002 SUMMARIES

Antti Kauppinen: The last chance for democracy? Throughout his career, Jürgen Habermas has been first and foremost a philosopher of democracy. For Habermas, the political autonomy of free and equal citizens is realized in processes of discursive will-formation in which everyone has an equal opportunity to present their reasons and engage in public deliberation. In addition to formal civil rights and open institutional structure, this translation of communicative power to administrative power requires an effective possibility to carry out political decisions whose subjects are also their authors, a fair equality of opportunity, and a sense of solidarity among citizens. Each of these presuppositions has been under threat as nation-states have had to give up decision-making power to markets and supranational actors. Habermas sees democratizing and strengthening the European Union with the goal of eventually bringing about a global domestic policy? as the only plausible answer to these challenges.

Ari Hirvonen: A European partiture, or why Europe needs an other constitution. Habermas defines (in his article elsewhere in this magazine) the European project as a distinction from, on the one hand, neoliberal thinkers who emphasize the sovereignty of market forces, and, on the other hand, euroskeptics, who emphasize the sovereignty of independent states. As a background of his article Habermas makes use of the unheard-of and unseen-of practice of the revolutionary citizens of Paris and the Founding Fathers of Philadelphia. In my article I make the point that the project has, ever since it started, been based on a universalization of a particular European experience into a normative ideal, on the basis of which it has been possible to  make distinctions of value regarding other continents, cultures and jurisdictions. The discussion on a European constitution is a continuation of his tradition.  However, at the same time, in the European tradition there has been a powerful idea of continuous revolution, i.e. the continuous event of the founding of Europe. The answer to the question ?Why does Europe need a constitution?? does not have to be based on Europe as a universal norm but on Europe as something that is coming. On this basis it is possible to sketch a polyphonic European concert.

Jakke Holvas The Radical Tie. Jean Baudrillard´s Fate as A Turning Away From Capitalism. In this article I try to challenge the capitalistic metaphysics of freedom by applying Jean Baudrillard?s conception of fate as presented in his Les Strategies Fatales (1983). The metaphysics of freedom characterizes capitalism in two ways. First, capitalism is freedom from archaic and feodalistic ties. Second, capitalism is freedom in relation to the possibilities of willing and producing. The world of fate is a hypothesis which does not include either one of these freedoms. It is neither a deterministic world, nor even a world of chance. It is a ceremonic world of rituals, inevitable connections and magnetic distances. The ethics of fate replaces the nihilistic ethics of Sollen by being open to the call of destiny. Fatalist thought affirms unexpected exteriority, but at the same time it relies on alliances and arbitrary rules of the illusoric world.

TIEDE & EDISTYS 4/2002 SUMMARIES

Virpi Lehtinen: Philosophy and Sexual Difference: Michèle Le D?uff and Luce Irigaray on love. Michèle Le D?uff and Luce Irigaray conceptualise the relationship of woman and philosophy as love. The problem lies in the indirect mode of the relationship, often realized through a masculine ? imaginary or real ? partner, who is The Philosopher of the couple. Le D?uff suggests that the philosophical couple has to be transformed, on the one hand, by changing our notions of philosophy into something that is more open and self-reflective. On the other hand, women need to work inside the academic institutions, in peer groups for instance, and thus avoid the traps of private amateurship. This seems to mean that love either disappears, changes into friendship or is directed at the common task of striving for wisdom. On her part, Luce Irigaray?s suggestion seems to be that our conception of love as well as of philosophy should be thought anew and this could happen only through sexual difference: by trying to articulate and live love between woman and man in a way that would make possible the love of wisdom and the rebirth of philosophy as a genuine dialogue. My conclusion is that although the positions of Le D?uff and Irigaray differ remarkably in respect to the beginning of philosophy in plurality or in the couple, both reject the model of one subject as the starting point of philosophising. Thus they posit the question of sexual difference as a philosophical question of extreme importance.

Johanna Oksala & Laura Werner: Love, power and forgiveness ? Feminist philosophy and the tradition of Western thought. The relation of women and, more specifically, feminist philosophers to the tradition of often misogynist Western thought has been troubled. The article examines two gendered metaphors, love and (patriarchal) power relation, which feminist philosophers have used to formulate this relation during the 20th century. Both these metaphors bring about different problems concerning the ?truth? philosophy is concerned with. In conclusion we look at a third possible metaphor for the relation of women philosophers and the canon of Western philosophy. Hannah Arendt?s notion of forgiveness, while not explicitly formulated for this context, combines elements of both love and politics and gives one way of reshaping a problem many women philosophers face: can one and should one understand one?s work as a continuation of a canon which historically has excluded women?

Elisa Heinämäki: If possible, I want to leave nothing in the shadows. Bataille, secularisation and the secret. The article considers the thinking of Georges Bataille in the context of secularisation and of modern re-evaluation of religion, especially of Christianity. Religion is defined as maintenance of the secret and secularisation as a demythologisation that seeks to unravel and abolish the structure of the secret. Bataille?s thinking is presented as an important example of the critique of the modern project of demythologisation. This critique, it is argued, is critique in the name of a certain religiosity, the religiosity of wild and unmediated experience. However ? the article seeks to establish ? at a closer look this experience turns out to be mediated by language. From Bataille?s texts, there emerges what one might call the ambiguous space of secularised religiosity.