Ulrich Steinvorth | University of Hamburg (original) (raw)
Uploads
Papers by Ulrich Steinvorth
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Jun 22, 2009
Springer eBooks, 2021
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this p... more The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
Kierkegaard is another religious author who like Augustine may be expected to teach humility rath... more Kierkegaard is another religious author who like Augustine may be expected to teach humility rather than pride. But again he presupposes extraordinary pride in specific human properties, those of being a self. His view on due pride is implied in the following lines:
The crucial factor that puts both current economies and nation states in crises is the modern tec... more The crucial factor that puts both current economies and nation states in crises is the modern technology that busts their reasons of existence; the profit condition for investments and the protection of national interests. Despite stubborn resistance to the abolition of the profit condition and national sovereignties, a way to a state more adequate to both modern technologies and human abilities seems to be marked out: the restoration of the intrinsic goals of production and the disaggregation of the states into glocal offices pursuing the various intrinsic goals of public affairs. Data processing, in contrast, seems to head to a new form of totalitarian manipulation that is hardly stoppable, although there is an alternative. One of the reasons for its dark victories is that we find in it an attack on our privacy in the first place rather than on our liberty.
Renaissance ideas of pride and authenticity had a historical impact, I claim. Can ideas have hist... more Renaissance ideas of pride and authenticity had a historical impact, I claim. Can ideas have historical impact at all? Isn’t it interests that move? According to Max Weber:
Kierkegaard’s evocation of the self was an appeal to be authentic, but he tried to avoid reducing... more Kierkegaard’s evocation of the self was an appeal to be authentic, but he tried to avoid reducing authenticity to Rousseauist subjectivity by binding authenticity to Christian virtues. Yet he found a public only in the twentieth century, and then only for his description of the self and its despair rather than for his tying authenticity to Christian virtues. Karl Marx was another author to save authenticity from fickle subjectivity. In his Philosophical-Economic Manuscripts of 1844, which also found a public only in the twentieth century, he didn’t talk of authenticity but of alienated work, presupposing a non-alienated activity that corresponds to authentic action. Non-alienated action, he says in hardly understandable Hegelese, is “grounded in the essence of the activity’s content and is adequate to the social spirit.” In Hegelian terms, he also states as a requirement for authentic action that man “treats himself as a universal and therefore a free being.”
Data processing threatens autonomy, but it shares the ambivalence of all technology between const... more Data processing threatens autonomy, but it shares the ambivalence of all technology between constructiveness and destructivity. It is the ambivalence of human will of which technology is an objectified social form. Such ambivalence inspires the kind of general reflection on man that can be presented in novels. No wonder then that computer technology and data processing have become subjects of best-selling novels in countries where data processing is most advanced and most threatening, in the USA and China. Let’s have a look at two prominent novels on data processing in these two countries, Dave Eggers’ The Circle and Hu Fayun’s novel on SARS mentioned earlier. Though not explicitly discussing pride, they do show the crucial role of proper pride as an antagonist to the administrative utility that propels data processing.
The twentieth century did not succeed in ridding the idea of authenticity of its Rousseauist subj... more The twentieth century did not succeed in ridding the idea of authenticity of its Rousseauist subjectivity. This may have contributed to the disasters of the twentieth century. No wonder that critics warned:
Kitsch, such as trashy literature, mawkish music and cutesy objects, is an old phenomenon. It is ... more Kitsch, such as trashy literature, mawkish music and cutesy objects, is an old phenomenon. It is generally considered to have acquired a new quality when the “cheap artistic stuff” that the German nouveaux riches started buying in the mid-nineteenth century got the name of kitsch, and both the name and what it stands for spread to all civilizations. There is agreement that kitsch has become a necessary element of contemporary economies, as it helps keep up the selling without which the value of investments cannot be realized. Adorno and other members of the Frankfurt School have argued capitalism needs kitsch, but also the New York Times columnist David Brooks, neither Marxist nor anti-capitalist, trendily referring to the real contradiction of capitalism, declares:
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Jun 22, 2009
Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, 1976
Carver's interpretation of Marx's value theory (Terrell Carver, ‘Marx's Commodity Fet... more Carver's interpretation of Marx's value theory (Terrell Carver, ‘Marx's Commodity Fetishism’, Inquiry, Vol. 18 [1975]) is accepted, but his rejection of it criticized by explicating the reasons Marx gives for his theory after his faulty analysis of exchange-value at the very beginning of Capital. The central concept of abstract labour is shown to relate commodity exchange to other forms of distribution; by being compared to these the function of commodity exchange is recognized as the attachment of an amount of abstract labour to a commodity, and exchange-value as that which determines that amount What it means to say value is thought to inhere in commodities is explicated.
Discussing objections will allow me to elaborate on S and its sub-theses in the way of a contest ... more Discussing objections will allow me to elaborate on S and its sub-theses in the way of a contest rather than systematically, which can easily become tedious.
In the search for moral motivation, shame rather than pride was early identified as an important ... more In the search for moral motivation, shame rather than pride was early identified as an important motive. Yet shame and honor are closely connected to pride. If our pride is hurt, typically we’ll feel ashamed, and if the reason of our shame is removed, typically we’ll feel proud. Plato, if we believe Plato, and the Sophist Protagoras before him, claimed that without shame people would lack morality. More recently, the American anthropologist Ruth Benedict, asked by the US Office for War Information to explain the behavior of the Japanese in World War II, pointed out the importance of pride in moral motivation when she ascribed to Japan what she called a shame culture, in contrast to the guilt culture that she ascribed to the West:
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Jun 22, 2009
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Jun 22, 2009
Springer eBooks, 2021
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this p... more The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
Kierkegaard is another religious author who like Augustine may be expected to teach humility rath... more Kierkegaard is another religious author who like Augustine may be expected to teach humility rather than pride. But again he presupposes extraordinary pride in specific human properties, those of being a self. His view on due pride is implied in the following lines:
The crucial factor that puts both current economies and nation states in crises is the modern tec... more The crucial factor that puts both current economies and nation states in crises is the modern technology that busts their reasons of existence; the profit condition for investments and the protection of national interests. Despite stubborn resistance to the abolition of the profit condition and national sovereignties, a way to a state more adequate to both modern technologies and human abilities seems to be marked out: the restoration of the intrinsic goals of production and the disaggregation of the states into glocal offices pursuing the various intrinsic goals of public affairs. Data processing, in contrast, seems to head to a new form of totalitarian manipulation that is hardly stoppable, although there is an alternative. One of the reasons for its dark victories is that we find in it an attack on our privacy in the first place rather than on our liberty.
Renaissance ideas of pride and authenticity had a historical impact, I claim. Can ideas have hist... more Renaissance ideas of pride and authenticity had a historical impact, I claim. Can ideas have historical impact at all? Isn’t it interests that move? According to Max Weber:
Kierkegaard’s evocation of the self was an appeal to be authentic, but he tried to avoid reducing... more Kierkegaard’s evocation of the self was an appeal to be authentic, but he tried to avoid reducing authenticity to Rousseauist subjectivity by binding authenticity to Christian virtues. Yet he found a public only in the twentieth century, and then only for his description of the self and its despair rather than for his tying authenticity to Christian virtues. Karl Marx was another author to save authenticity from fickle subjectivity. In his Philosophical-Economic Manuscripts of 1844, which also found a public only in the twentieth century, he didn’t talk of authenticity but of alienated work, presupposing a non-alienated activity that corresponds to authentic action. Non-alienated action, he says in hardly understandable Hegelese, is “grounded in the essence of the activity’s content and is adequate to the social spirit.” In Hegelian terms, he also states as a requirement for authentic action that man “treats himself as a universal and therefore a free being.”
Data processing threatens autonomy, but it shares the ambivalence of all technology between const... more Data processing threatens autonomy, but it shares the ambivalence of all technology between constructiveness and destructivity. It is the ambivalence of human will of which technology is an objectified social form. Such ambivalence inspires the kind of general reflection on man that can be presented in novels. No wonder then that computer technology and data processing have become subjects of best-selling novels in countries where data processing is most advanced and most threatening, in the USA and China. Let’s have a look at two prominent novels on data processing in these two countries, Dave Eggers’ The Circle and Hu Fayun’s novel on SARS mentioned earlier. Though not explicitly discussing pride, they do show the crucial role of proper pride as an antagonist to the administrative utility that propels data processing.
The twentieth century did not succeed in ridding the idea of authenticity of its Rousseauist subj... more The twentieth century did not succeed in ridding the idea of authenticity of its Rousseauist subjectivity. This may have contributed to the disasters of the twentieth century. No wonder that critics warned:
Kitsch, such as trashy literature, mawkish music and cutesy objects, is an old phenomenon. It is ... more Kitsch, such as trashy literature, mawkish music and cutesy objects, is an old phenomenon. It is generally considered to have acquired a new quality when the “cheap artistic stuff” that the German nouveaux riches started buying in the mid-nineteenth century got the name of kitsch, and both the name and what it stands for spread to all civilizations. There is agreement that kitsch has become a necessary element of contemporary economies, as it helps keep up the selling without which the value of investments cannot be realized. Adorno and other members of the Frankfurt School have argued capitalism needs kitsch, but also the New York Times columnist David Brooks, neither Marxist nor anti-capitalist, trendily referring to the real contradiction of capitalism, declares:
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Jun 22, 2009
Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, 1976
Carver's interpretation of Marx's value theory (Terrell Carver, ‘Marx's Commodity Fet... more Carver's interpretation of Marx's value theory (Terrell Carver, ‘Marx's Commodity Fetishism’, Inquiry, Vol. 18 [1975]) is accepted, but his rejection of it criticized by explicating the reasons Marx gives for his theory after his faulty analysis of exchange-value at the very beginning of Capital. The central concept of abstract labour is shown to relate commodity exchange to other forms of distribution; by being compared to these the function of commodity exchange is recognized as the attachment of an amount of abstract labour to a commodity, and exchange-value as that which determines that amount What it means to say value is thought to inhere in commodities is explicated.
Discussing objections will allow me to elaborate on S and its sub-theses in the way of a contest ... more Discussing objections will allow me to elaborate on S and its sub-theses in the way of a contest rather than systematically, which can easily become tedious.
In the search for moral motivation, shame rather than pride was early identified as an important ... more In the search for moral motivation, shame rather than pride was early identified as an important motive. Yet shame and honor are closely connected to pride. If our pride is hurt, typically we’ll feel ashamed, and if the reason of our shame is removed, typically we’ll feel proud. Plato, if we believe Plato, and the Sophist Protagoras before him, claimed that without shame people would lack morality. More recently, the American anthropologist Ruth Benedict, asked by the US Office for War Information to explain the behavior of the Japanese in World War II, pointed out the importance of pride in moral motivation when she ascribed to Japan what she called a shame culture, in contrast to the guilt culture that she ascribed to the West:
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Jun 22, 2009