Pedro Tabensky | Rhodes University (original) (raw)

Books by Pedro Tabensky

Papers by Pedro Tabensky

J.B. Metzler eBooks, 2022

South African Journal of Philosophy, 2008

This piece is one of among a handful that seek in the first instance to reveal the origin of Afri... more This piece is one of among a handful that seek in the first instance to reveal the origin of African philosophy as an academic discipline, the source of its unity and distinctiveness. The discipline of African philosophy originates in tragedy, out of pain, confusion and rage stemming from ...

Theoria (Pietermaritzburg), Aug 1, 2007

In this paper I criticize political realism in International Relations for not being realistic en... more In this paper I criticize political realism in International Relations for not being realistic enough, for being unrealistically pessimistic and ultimately incoherent. For them the international arena will always be a place where a battle of wills, informed by the logic of power, is fought. I grant that it may be true that the international political domain is a place where such battles are fought, but this alleged infelicitous situation does not in and of itself entail the normative pessimism informing their assessments of the international domain, and it does not entail the recommendations offered by political realists, particularly relating to balance of power concerns. Their lack of realism stems from total or partial blindness to the proper and coherent ideals that ought to be informing their analyses of the international domain. Such blindness does not allow them properly to grasp what actually is the case. As we can only properly understand what an eye is by knowing the ideal that defines eyes — proper vision — so too we can only properly identify the movements of the international political arena in relation to ideals that ultimately define this arena, ideals that stem from a proper understanding of the human person. Following an Aristotelian teleological technique of analysis, I show that ideals are a constitutive part of the international domain and I recommend an alternative to political realism, namely, realistic idealism (or, if you prefer, idealistic realism).

The Philosophers' Magazine, 2009

Routledge eBooks, Oct 26, 2022

Routledge eBooks, Jun 29, 2020

Educational Philosophy and Theory, Aug 2, 2013

Abstract It is the epistemic as well as the ethical responsibility of academics to aim to approac... more Abstract It is the epistemic as well as the ethical responsibility of academics to aim to approach their research and teaching with a proper understanding of the ultimate ethical purpose or telos of their defining activities and products,which is the practical aim of promoting human flourishing. Minimally, academics should aim at understanding, and a key component of understanding is to understand the ideal ethical purpose of what is being researched and taught. For instance, sadistic Nazi medical researchers and teachers—Mengeles of sorts—in addition to having reprehensible commitments,would be significantly ignorant about their own intellectual concerns by virtue of their abject (belief-expressing) commitments. I will show that insights drawn from extreme cases such as this one apply across disciplines and in less extreme cases.

Theoria (Pietermaritzburg), 2010

I believe that the fact of the juxtaposition of the white and the black races has created a massi... more I believe that the fact of the juxtaposition of the white and the black races has created a massive psychoexistential complex. I hope to analyze it to destroy it ... This book is a clinical study. Those who recognize themselves in it, I think, will have made a step forward. I seriously hope to ...

Routledge eBooks, Oct 26, 2022

South African Journal of Philosophy, 2009

What's Wrong with Walden Two? Pedro Alexis Tabensky Department of Philosophy Rhodes Universi... more What's Wrong with Walden Two? Pedro Alexis Tabensky Department of Philosophy Rhodes University PO Box 94 Grahamstown, 6140 South Africa Email: p.tabensky@ru.ac.za You can't enforce happiness. You can't in the long run enforce anything. We don't use force! ...

J.B. Metzler eBooks, 2022

South African Journal of Philosophy, 2008

Theoria (Pietermaritzburg), Aug 1, 2007

The Philosophers' Magazine, 2009

Routledge eBooks, Oct 26, 2022

Routledge eBooks, Jun 29, 2020

Educational Philosophy and Theory, Aug 2, 2013

Theoria (Pietermaritzburg), 2010

Routledge eBooks, Oct 26, 2022

South African Journal of Philosophy, 2009

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education, Dec 21, 2022

Contributions to hermeneutics, 2017

Jeff Malpas has been successfully developing a ‘topological’ conception of philosophy and, more g... more Jeff Malpas has been successfully developing a ‘topological’ conception of philosophy and, more generally, life (a conception inspired chiefly by the latter Heidegger). Malpas is mainly concerned with the problem of place. The idea here, it must be stressed, is not merely geographical, not merely a problem of space. One fundamental idea informing Malpas’ philosophy of place is the well-known Heideggerian and, more broadly, phenomenological, view that we are thrown into the world, that we are always and already in the world, that knowledge of self and of that which exists beyond self—other and world—presuppose each other, leaving no wiggle room for genuine commitment to global skepticism. We are, as Malpas puts it, ‘given over’ to the world. That we are given over in this way means that who we are, indeed how we grasp the world, cannot be disentangled from where we are, from our place. So inattentiveness to place can only emerge if we are not properly cognizant of how thought is grounded in place, which is to say that it can only emerge if we do not properly to understand the knowledge project. My aim in this chapter is to make use of Malpas’ philosophy of place to develop an account of the place of South African philosophy or, perhaps better put, philosophy from South Africa.

In this piece I explore the general idea that the presence of large and small evils in our lives ... more In this piece I explore the general idea that the presence of large and small evils in our lives are a necessary condition for living morally worthwhile lives as opposed to bland lives significantly lacking purpose-bestowing challenges. Because of this, I argue, taking my lead from authors such as Nietzsche, de Beauvoir and Camus, our existence is fundamentally tragic. For our lives to be genuinely morally worthwhile they must be vulnerable to actual evils, large and small. Evil, I further argue, is both the excuse for being good and, also, actual evils and not merely imagined evils, are required for properly grasping the very idea of goodness; grasping, if you will, its genuine preciousness. In showing that multifarious evils are actually necessary for living the sorts of lives that we consider, after careful consideration, to be most worthwhile, I argue against the perfectionist ideal of the good and replace it with the idea of a plurality of goods, which are important to us in relation to the significant challenges that are actually strewn on our way; the specific obstacles to goodness — evils — that give shape to our vulnerable, tragic and, crucially, meaning-driven — meaning-thirsty, one could say — lives. Without actual suffering, without the labour of overcoming genuine hardship — a labour that often leads to failure — the opportunity of living morally worthwhile lives would be lost. And yet the conditions for living morally worthwhile lives are also the conditions that lead so many down the path of destructiveness, or, less dramatically, to live significantly unfulfilled lives from the moral point of view. Our situation is inherently tragic and yet there is scope for optimism, but the optimism is limited by the very conditions that permit us to live morally meaningful lives in the first place.