Paul D’Ambrosio in Los Angeles Review of Books on the Proliferation of Profilicity: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-proliferation-of-profilicity/
Category Archives: Modernity
New episodes of The Issue is Not The Issue
The Issue is Not the Issue: A Podcast with Hans-Georg Moeller and Dan Sarafinas
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfs0MY7rs8J6jWlCdneoPVQ
Hans-Georg Moeller and Dan Sarafinas discuss contemporary debates on “political correctness” and related moral and social issues. They point to concepts such as virtue speech (“virtue signalling”), civil religion, “profilicity,” and the role of critique to better understand their nature.
Episode 3—Critique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W1m0Bez8vU
Philosophy today runs the risk of once more becoming the “handmaiden of theology” by being put in the service of civil religion. The Kantian concept of critique is revived to reflect on contemporary dogmatism and associated power structures that lead to phenomena such as “competitive wokeness” in entertainment (Taylor Swift) or the need to write “diversity statements” in academia. The idea of a therapeutic rather than a normative philosophy is suggested and it is explained how society, along with critique, evolves rather than progresses.
Episode 4—Profilicity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Yz1C0-mtWI
Why do we need to produce “virtue speech”? We need it to be competitive in society and to bolster our public profiles. A new profile-based identity paradigm, called “profilicity,” is on the rise. It is replacing other identity paradigms such as sincerity and authenticity and provides not only individuals but also institutions (political parties, companies, universities, etc.) with identity value.
The Issue is Not the Issue: A Podcast with Hans-Georg Moeller and Dan Sarafinas
Hans-Georg Moeller and Dan Sarafinas discuss contemporary debates on “political correctness” and related moral and social issues. They point to concepts such as virtue speech (“virtue signalling”), civil religion, and the role of critique to better understand their nature.
Episode 1–Virtue Speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pg8H-b87Cs;
The phenomenon of virtue speech (“virtue signalling”) has become a central feature in recent outrage movements pervasive throughout the West. Virtue speech, which is implicitly tied to accusations of hate speech, is a form of moralistic discourse setting speech examples that make it difficult to openly discuss elements of our culture without falling into the trap of moralizing.
Episode 2–Civil Religion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EDEuXCPHOQ
Civil religion plays a central role in the virtue speech, or political correctness, discourse. The history of the concept is discussed as well as the structure of the American form of civil religion and how tenets of civil religion are constantly being performed and re-enacted, particularly in current social media outrage movements.
New Book: Van den Stock, The Horizon of Modernity
Ady Van den Stock, The Horizon of Modernity: Subjectivity and Social Structure in New Confucian Philosophy. Leiden: Brill, 2016.
Korean Modernity and Philosophy Workshop
KOREAN MODERNITY/COLONIALITY
KOREAN PHILOSOPHY WORKSHOP
University of San Francisco, August 13-14, 2013
Many elements formed Korean modernity/coloniality from the 19th century onward: a receding Sinocentric world, an encroaching Western world, Japanese colonialism, the “New Woman,” racialization, Marxism, a cataclysmic war at home, a divided country, U.S. imperialism, struggles between authoritarian regimes and peoples’ movements, a diasporic nation… This workshop explores philosophical figures and themes in this nexus of forces and concepts. Talks and speakers include: