Utopianism (original) (raw)
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Prophecy, Piety, and Profits
Utopia, which] emerged as an artificially concocted proper name has acquired, in the last two centuries, a sense so extended that it refers not only to a literary genre but to a way of thinking, to a mentality, to a philosophical attitude, and is being employed in depicting cultural phenomena going back to antiquity. (Quoted in Sargent 2010, 5) In one of the most important works on the topic, Ideology and Utopia, Karl Mannheim defines this "state of mind [that] is utopian [as one that] is incongruous with the state of reality within which it occurs." In describing this "state of mind", he adds: This incongruence is always evident in the fact that such a state of mind in experience, in thought, and in practice, is oriented towards objects which do not exist in the actual situation. However, we should not regard as utopian every state of mind which is incongruous with and transcends the immediate situation (and in this sense, 'departs from reality'). Only those orientations transcending reality will be referred to by us as utopian which, when they pass over into conduct, tend to shatter, either partially or wholly, the order of things prevailing at the time.
Mapping the Unmappable: Dichotomies of Utopianism
Filozofski vestnik, 2017
The 500th anniversary of the first edition of Thomas More's Utopia was accompanied by a seemingly inexhaustible wave of discussions, conferences, and publications on utopianism and its innumerable well-and less-known forms. All this buzz around the topic showed, on the one hand, that there is plenty of interest in utopia at the beginning of the 21st century, most notably in academia given that utopian studies are thriving, and researchers are publishing books and articles on a regular basis. On the other hand, however, at least in developed countries, there has been a growing tendency toward dystopia for the last couple of decades, and utopia became predominantly a pejorative word-a way to insult someone for his or her political orientation.
Change in the Perception of Utopia
2019
The word utopia derives from the Greek words topos (place) and eu (good) and ou (not). (Reiner, 1963: 16) In Roger L. Emerson (1973), for the word utopia, eutopia and outopia, respectively, meaning, good place (no place), which means that two words derived from the Greek. The uncertainty between Eutopie (out of place) and outopia (out of place) is probably defined as available social systems and sometimes fantasies of perfection that are desired but not achieved. The derived word "utopia" was first used as a Greek term in the literary work De Optima Reipublicae Statu Deque Nova Insula Utopia, written by the English writer Thomas More in 1516. Thomas More used the term "utopia" to derive from the roots " u " and " topos" meaning nonexistent in Greek. The term "utopos" is an island that stands between reality and the imaginary plane. Krishan Kumar (2005) states that utopia is both nowhere and a good place(eutopia). However, the first example of utopia in the sense that Thomas More had no place in the British island to imagine, in other words, a product of his imagination, was Plato's State, which is considered a political utopia. It describes the ideal state in the State, and the concept of dystopia is a concept against utopia.
Office phone: 517-607-2724 Office: Kendall 406 Office hours: Monday 11:00-12:00, Wednesday 9:30-10:30 and 3:30-5:00, Friday 2:30-3:30; and by appointment "The bounds of the possible in moral matters are less narrow than we think-it is our weaknesses, our vices, our prejudices that constrict them. Base souls do not believe in great men; vile slaves smile mockingly at the word freedom." -Jean-Jacques Rousseau "For if one really believes that such a [final] solution is possible, then surely no cost would be too high to obtain it: to make mankind just and happy and creative and harmonious forever-what could be too high a price to pay for that? To make such an omelette, there is surely no limit to the number of eggs that should be broken…." -Isaiah Berlin "But perhaps…there is a model of [the just city] in the heavens, for anyone who wants to look at it and to make himself its citizen on the strength of what he sees." -Plato
In What’s New in the New Europe? Redefining Culture, Politics, Identity;. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego., 2019
Utopia is indiscriminately charged with pathologies such as teleology and stability in much contemporary political-philosophical literature. Yet, a closer conceptual examination of utopia shows that there is no compelling argument about utopia being intrinsically linked to such pathologies. Therefore, I argue, conceptions of utopia that justifiably invite such charges are projections of epochal, indeed, specifically modern, understandings of the notion. The static and teleological semantic contents of the term are in no way indispensable. In other words, if we ask again the question about what is and is not utopia and whether utopia is comprehensible and theorizable without predicates of teleology and stability, we will come up with a reconceptualization of utopia that challenges modern framings of the notion. In this paper, I deal with such questions and explore why utopia is not inescapably unrealizable, teleological and finalist, too determinate and, consequently, tyrannical. Drawing from relevant sources (I rely mainly on Marianna Papastephanou’s theory and I show its relevance to such conceptualization), I take issue with those thinkers who, in the effort to stave off bad utopianism, resort to defining utopia as empty of content or as exclusively processual. I side with those sources which consider a degree of determinacy important for conceptual, explanatory, justificatory and normative reasons.
What is Utopia? History, Theory, Tradition
Duncan Bell and Douglas Mao, Utopia (OUP 2025)
This is the draft of a chapter that will be published in: Duncan Bell and Douglas Mao, Utopia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2025)