Rough Theory

Theory In The Rough

Monthly Archives: April 2007

A Few Shared Subjects and Objects

Leave a Comment Posted by N Pepperell on April 29, 2007

For those who haven’t yet discovered it, I wanted to post a pointer here to the wonderful philosophy and critical theory blog Grundlegung, whose author has begun outlining an exciting and deeply thoughtful approach to issues near and dear around these parts: how to reposition the critique of capitalism within a framework that points beyond [...]

Conversations, Critical Theory, Political Economy

Whereof We Cannot Speak

12 Comments Posted by N Pepperell on April 28, 2007

N Pepperell: I’m sure that regular readers of this blog will sympathise with the notion that “what the hell does NP mean” is a somewhat popular game locally, with the reading group members in particular often dedicating more time than my project likely deserves to piecing together what I’m trying to say and whether I’m [...]

Critical Theory, Dialogue

Temporal Mobility in the Academic Labour Market

1 Comment Posted by N Pepperell on April 26, 2007

I received an interesting backchannel observation yesterday, prompted (I think) by the Counter-Factual Immanence post: The problems you raise are, perversely, quite ahistorical problems – I imagine you too could command an audience in Edinburgh in the late 1700s! So there you have it: if my current situation doesn’t work out, the Scottish Enlightenment is [...]

Overheard

Tragedy or Hope

Leave a Comment Posted by N Pepperell on April 25, 2007

The things you find when putting together course materials… I was trawling through the Internet Archive, trying to find some short video material on postwar history that I could use to illustrate some points for the planning theory class. And of course I couldn’t help but get distracted when one of my searches pulled up: [...]

Links, Procrastination, Teaching

Counter-Factual Immanence

21 Comments Posted by N Pepperell on April 22, 2007

One of the questions that comes up often in the reading group discussion of my project is why I don’t simply treat core concepts like immanence and self-reflexivity as something like a prioris – as posited starting points, from which the other theoretical moves can then be derived. Everyone involved in the reading group discussion [...]

Critical Theory, Metatheory, Negations, Philosophy of History, Reading Group, Self-Reflexivity

Been There, Done That

1 Comment Posted by N Pepperell on April 19, 2007

L Magee has recently discovered that social scientists are confused by how the Semantic Web community uses the term “ontology” to refer, not to the study of being, but to formal representations of knowledge. LM has recently fielded a suggestion that this confusion is best avoided by appending some prefix or suffix to the term [...]

Reading Group

The Matter of Madness

5 Comments Posted by N Pepperell on April 19, 2007

A few days ago, Sinthome from Larval Subjects wrote a beautiful reflection on the capacity to desire difference, which led Joseph Kugelmass to offer an intriguing response, which prompted both Sinthome and me to ask for more information. Joseph has now provided this, in a post over the Kugelmass Episodes – Sinthome has responded, and [...]

Conversations, Critical Theory, Philosophy of History

Critical Self-Reflexivity

Leave a Comment Posted by N Pepperell on April 18, 2007

So L Magee has apparently decided to branch out into some independent research on the question of immanent theory – and as a result has now obtained independent confirmation that there’s no place like home. Apparently, googling “immanent theory” brings up, as a prominent result, the two dialogues we’ve jointly written on the issue here. [...]

Blogging, Overheard, Reading Group

Transmutation vs. Management

Leave a Comment Posted by N Pepperell on April 16, 2007

In more than a rush today, but was struck by this passage from Keynes, on reasons for retaining private wealth: There are valuable human activities which require the motive of money-making and the environment of private wealth-ownership for their full fruition. Moreover, dangerous human proclivities can be canalised into comparatively harmless channels by the existence [...]

Political Economy, Psychology

Monkey See…

Leave a Comment Posted by N Pepperell on April 14, 2007

In a post about why he doesn’t want to discuss candidate preferences in the US Presidential race, Tyler Cowen from Marginal Revolution has managed to write the most depressing sentence I’ve seen in while: Chimps will give up bananas, just to be able to gaze at photos of high-status other chimps. Sinthome over at Larval [...]

Links

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