Human Affairs

Abstract There is little need to argue for the importance of human rights (HRs) in our world. If one looks at the role they play today, it is hard to deny that their impact has increased beyond anything the drafters of the 1948 Universal Declaration could have hoped or imagined. However, even though human rights today have a far greater impact on politics than in the past, the philosophical reflection that surrounds them has had a less fortunate history. It is doubtful whether we are today in a better position than we were in 1948 to answer any of the philosophical questions surrounding them, including, and perhaps most crucially, the question about their foundation. Why are human rights standards—of whatever sort—that we should adopt, or even just take seriously? The first two parts of this paper summarize my recent work on the above question (Caranti, 2017) and the third takes it a step further. I will 1) show why the main orientations in the contemporary philosophy of human rights all fail to yield a satisfactory foundation, 2) sketch an alternative foundation that exploits Kant’s account of human dignity in a rather critical way; and 3) address one major objection my approach is bound to attract (and in a certain form has already attracted). Since my foundation suggests that we have dignity (and as a consequence human rights) because we are autonomous, that is, capable of moral behavior, some scholars have argued that I am bound to the counterintuitive conclusion that people with a temporary or permanent lack of rational capacity, which would cause a condition of “impaired autonomy,” are not entitled to the protection of human rights. While this objection does nothing but reformulate in the language of human rights an old, classical objection to Kant’s ethics, replying to it requires mobilizing new intellectual resources.

Luigi Caranti

The dignity approach to human rights and the impaired autonomy objection

尊严路径与人权及自主性受损异议

Abstract This article explores causes and consequences of the declining funding chances of political theorizing with the aim of advancing measures to offset them. Major national and international research programmes growingly present challenges that require problem-solving strategies. Applied research disciplines are better fitted to tackle them than basic research disciplines to which political theorizing belongs. Drawing on the enlightening contribution of theory to political research and politics, it argues that the knowledge it produces can be shared across disciplinary boundaries if its scientific reliability is secured. With that aim, the article submits two practical suggestions: enriching normative accounts of politics with research historically and institutionally informed, and streamlining its enquiring capacity by exploring standard, modular and integrated interdisciplinary approaches.

José María Rosales

On the Funding Chances of Political Theorizing

论政治理论化的资助机会

Abstract The publication of Art as Experience in 1934 marked a theoretical turning point away from the disinterested spectatorship of Kant towards an aesthetics of everyday life. Dewey’s major claim therein is that “aesthetic experience” is privileged and ought to be taken as paradigmatic for all experience because it is controlled by an affective unity that he calls “pervasive quality” which harmonizes thought and action with its social and environmental context. In 1935 Walter Benjamin argued that pre-industrial works of art have an “aura” that exerts an affective lure on consciousness, and that the remnants of this aura in the post-industrial age may lead to the abandonment of critical thought and seduce the masses into the sway of fascism. This paper considers John Dewey’s aesthetic theory in light of the critical perspective developed by his contemporaries in Frankfurt School. I will consider whether Dewey’s reliance on the qualitative dimension of experience undermines the critical reflection that, theoretically, prevents the “aestheticization of politics” that leads to the spread of fascism, and propose that pragmatist aesthetics would benefit from greater tolerance for the “negativity” exemplified by the critical theorists.

Bethany Henning

Critical Aesthetics Between American Pragmatism and the Frankfurt School

美国实用主义与法兰克福学派之间的批判美学

Abstract This paper is devoted to the transformation of the practices of obtaining academic degrees in Ukraine by applicants from outside the Academy. My hypothesis is that neopatrimonial science, political regime, and credentialism have led to consumption of academic degrees in Ukraine. It is a socially and politically selective process, where the initial pattern is established by the reference groups of top officials. This pattern is subsequently copied and reproduced by lower ranks. It is related to (economically) favorable conditions contributing to the transfer of academic regalia from the category of luxury goods to objects of mass consumption. This process has its own specific features for different groups of applicants from outside the Academy, where the significant factors are the applicant’s position and its rank, regional structure of the political regime, and gender. The empirical basis of the work was: (a) career patterns of 642 former and current governors and/or heads of Regional Councils during 1992–2024; (b) 1,735 candidate (PhD) theses in political science defended during 1999–2024.

Vadym Osin

From Neopatrimonial Science to Consumption of Academic Degrees: The Case of Political Science in Ukraine

从新庇护主义科学到学术学位的消费：乌克兰政治学案例

Abstract We argue that the proper context for understanding Collingwood’s The Principles of Art is his claim that it has bearing “upon the condition of art in England in 1937”. We thus argue that he formulated a philosophical argument that underpins avant-garde dramatic poetry and theatrical practices (Eliot, Auden and the Group Theatre), taking his interpretation of Spinoza’s Ethics 5 prop. 3 to be the book’s central thesis: it is through art that one knows, against the ‘corruption of consciousness’, what emotions one feels and recognizes them as one’s own. Collingwood further believed that this could only be achieved through collaboration between the artist and the community, validating new theatrical practices involving interaction with the audience. We analyse these views in the context of England in 1937: in an era marked by the rise of Fascism and Nazism, Collingwood believed that art thus conceived could help restoring emotional support for the defense of liberal democracies. We conclude with an exploration of parallels with and divergences from the Spinozist idea of ‘mobilizing affects’ in contemporary ‘left populism’ (Mouffe).

Chinatsu Kobayashi

Mathieu Marion

Collingwood on Spinoza and the Social-Political Role of Art

柯林伍德论斯宾诺莎与艺术的社会政治角色

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief account of part of Collingwood’s philosophy of art, in particular that dealing with the relationship between art, craft and magic, in relation to the corruption of consciousness, and to consider some of the implications for the aesthetic evaluation of ‘works of art’ produced as moral or political propaganda. I shall try to do this by drawing on the work of Matthew Kieran in relation to art and morality. I will not so much analyse or criticise Collingwood’s conception of the corruption of consciousness as presuppose it as the conception which makes sense of Collingwood’s understanding of the relation between art and morality.

Abbreviation	Hum. Aff.
Journal Impact	0.56
Quartiles(Global)	SOCIAL SCIENCES, INTERDISCIPLINARY(Q3)

ISSN	1210-3055, 1337-401X, 1338-2373
h-index	19

Publication Information	Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH，Publishing cycle: ，Journal Type: journal，Open Access Journals: No
Basic data	Year of publication: 1991，Proportion of original research papers: 100.00%，Self Citation Rate:0.00%， Gold OA Rate: 13.11%

Human Affairs

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The dignity approach to human rights and the impaired autonomy objection

On the Funding Chances of Political Theorizing

Critical Aesthetics Between American Pragmatism and the Frankfurt School

From Neopatrimonial Science to Consumption of Academic Degrees: The Case of Political Science in Ukraine

Collingwood on Spinoza and the Social-Political Role of Art

On the Funding Chances of Political Theorizing

Art, Magic and the Corruption of Consciousness

Critical Aesthetics Between American Pragmatism and the Frankfurt School

From Neopatrimonial Science to Consumption of Academic Degrees: The Case of Political Science in Ukraine

Collingwood on Spinoza and the Social-Political Role of Art