"The history of European economic thought has long been written by those seeking to prove or disprove the truth-value of the theories they describe. This work takes a different approach. It explores the philosophical groundwork of the theoretical structure within which economic subjects are presented. Demonstrating how the subjects of economic texts tend to be defined in and through their relationship to knowledge, this study addresses the epistemological constitution of subjectivity in economic thought."--Publisher's website.
The history of European economic thought has long been written by those seeking to prove or disprove the truth-value of the theories they describe. This work takes a different approach. It explores the philosophical groundwork of the theoretical structure within which economic subjects are presented. Demonstrating how the subjects of economic texts tend to be defined in and through their relationship to knowledge, this study addresses the epistemological constitution of subjectivity in economic thought.
Examining the complex social and material relationships between architecture and ecology which constitute modern cultures, this collection responds to the need to extend architectural thinking about ecology beyond current design literatures. This book shows how the ‘habitats’, ‘natural milieus’, ‘places’ or ‘shelters’ that construct architectural ecologies are composed of complex and dynamic material, spatial, social, political, economic and ecological concerns. With contributions from a range of leading international experts and academics in architecture, art, anthropology, philosophy, feminist theory, law, medicine and political science, this volume offers professionals and researchers engaged in the social and cultural biodiversity of built environments, new interdisciplinary perspectives on the relational and architectural ecologies which are required for dealing with the complex issues of sustainable human habitation and environmental action. The book provides: 16 essays, including two visual essays, by leading international experts and academics from the UK, US, Australia, New Zealand and Europe; including Rosi Braidotti, Lorraine Code, Verena Andermatt Conley and Elizabeth Grosz A clear structure: divided into 5 parts addressing bio-political ecologies and architectures; uncertain, anxious and damaged ecologies; economics, land and consumption; biological and medical architectural ecologies; relational ecological practices and architectures An exploration of the relations between human and political life An examination of issues such as climate change, social and environmental well-being, land and consumption, economically damaging global approaches to design, community ecologies and future architectural practice.
Critique of Architecture offers a renewed and radical theorization of the relations between capital and architecture. It explicates the theoretical gymnastics through which architecture legitimates its services to neoliberalism, examines the discipline’s production of platforms for happily compliant consumers, and challenges its entrepreneurial self-image. Critique of Architecture also addresses the discourse of autonomy, questioning its capacity to engage effectively with the terms and conditions of capitalism today, analyses the post-political turns of contemporary architecture theory, and reckons with the legacies and limitations of critical theory.
Once condemned by Modernism and compared to a ‘crime’ by Adolf Loos, ornament has made a spectacular return in contemporary architecture. This is typified by the works of well-known architects such as Herzog & de Meuron, Sauerbruch Hutton, Farshid Moussavi Architecture and OMA. There is no doubt that these new ornamental tendencies are inseparable from innovations in computer technology. The proliferation of developments in design software has enabled architects to experiment afresh with texture, colour, pattern and topology. Though inextricably linked with digital tools and culture, Antoine Picon argues that some significant traits in ornament persist from earlier Western architectural traditions. These he defines as the ‘subjective’ – the human interaction that ornament requires in both its production and its reception – and the political. Contrary to the message conveyed by the founding fathers of modern architecture, traditional ornament was not meant only for pleasure. It conveyed vital information about the designation of buildings as well as about the rank of their owners. As such, it participated in the expression of social values, hierarchies and order. By bringing previous traditions in ornament under scrutiny, Picon makes us question the political issues at stake in today’s ornamental revival. What does it tell us about present-day culture? Why are we presently so fearful of meaning in architecture? Could it be that by steering so vehemently away from symbolism, contemporary architecture is evading any explicit contribution to collective values?
The Architecture of Neoliberalism pursues an uncompromising critique of the neoliberal turn in contemporary architecture. This book reveals how a self-styled parametric and post-critical architecture serves mechanisms of control and compliance while promoting itself, at the same time, as progressive. Spencer's incisive analysis of the architecture and writings of figures such as Zaha Hadid, Patrik Schumacher, Rem Koolhaas, and Greg Lynn shows them to be in thrall to the same notions of liberty as are propounded in neoliberal thought. Analysing architectural projects in the fields of education, consumption and labour, The Architecture of Neoliberalism examines the part played by contemporary architecture in refashioning human subjects into the compliant figures - student-entrepreneurs, citizen-consumers and team-workers - requisite to the universal implementation of a form of existence devoted to market imperatives.
This book explores the architectural significance of Deleuze's philosophy of subjectivization, and Guattari's overlooked dialogue on architecture and subjectivity. In doing so, it proposes that subjectivity is no longer the exclusive provenance of human beings, but extends to the architectural, the cinematic, the erotic, and the political. It defines a new position within the literature on Deleuze and architecture, while highlighting the neglected issue of subjectivity in contemporary discussion.
Hegel’s philosophy has witnessed periods of revival and oblivion, at times considered to be an unrivalled and all-embracing system of thought, but often renounced with no less ardour. This book renews the dialogue with Hegel by looking at his legacy as a source of insight and judgement that helps us rethink contemporary economics. This book focuses on a concept of institution which is equally important for Hegel's political philosophy and for economic theory to date. The key contributions of this Hegelian perspective on economics lead us to the synthesis of traditional approaches and new ideas gained in economic experiments and advanced by neuroeconomists, sociologists and cognitive scientists. The proper account of contemporary 'civil society' involves comprehending it as a historically evolving totality of individual minds, ideas and intersubjective structures that are mutually dependent, tied by recognitive relations, and assert themselves as a whole in the ongoing performative movement of 'objective spitit'. The ethics of recognition is paired with the ethics of associations that supports moral principles and gives them true, concrete universality. This unusual constellation of seemingly remote fields suggests that Hegel, read in a pragmatist mode, anticipated the new theories and philosophies of extended mind, social cognition and performativity. By providing a new conceptual apparatus and reformulating the theory of institutions in the light of this new synthesis, this book claims to give new meaning both to Hegel as interpreted from today, and to the social sciences. Seen from this perspective, such phenomena as cooperation in games, personal identity or justice in the version of Amartya Sen's 'realization-focused comparisons' are reinscribed into the logic of institutional theory. This 'Hegel' clearly goes beyond the limits of philosophical discussion and becomes a decisive reference for economists, sociologists, political scientists and other scholars who study the foundations and consequences of human sociality and try to explore and design the institutions necessary for a worthy common life.
