Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

In this article, the main focus will be to analyze the notion of mediation in an attempt to apply it to one of the major topics of our time: the increasing impact of AI technologies in social life. Mediation being essentially a relational concept, I will start by linking it to the relational thinking developed in sociological theory and postphenomenology. My own contribution will be to take a substantialist position and to define what I consider to be the ecstatic dimension of relationality, re-interpreted via the notion of “being-toward.” I will also draw on Sartre's socio-materialist understanding of mediation, focusing in particular on his general conceptualization of the “practico-inert field.” A metaphorological approach will be presented in the final part of the study to illustrate the relations between humans and AI technologies. Three metaphors will be used to explore the meaning of algorithmic mediations: “vampire objects,” “bewitched quantities,” and “frozen voices.” These metaphors will be interpreted in light of empirical phenomena: (a) algorithmically generated “synthetic data,” (b) “high-frequency trading,” and (c) AI recruitment chatbots in hiring.

“Migration” has received less attention in social theory compared to other topics, and at the same time, migration research is often said to have a “theory deficit.” Against this background, we argue that it is mutually beneficial to relate and link social theory and migration research more closely. On the one hand, a stronger reference to social theories is important for migration research to break down prevailing views on migration and to further develop independent analytical perspectives and concepts that allow for a critical-reflexive distance to (national-)state and hegemonic categories. These established categories often go hand in hand with undercomplex, essentialist notions of society, as in dominant integration discourses. In social theory, on the other hand, migration is rarely addressed, with hardly any debates in migration research discussed. When migration is addressed, it is mostly to illustrate theoretical concepts and theses, without sufficiently considering the complexity of migration phenomena. In this introductory article, we outline how we can revise perspectives and categories of migration studies based on a rearticulation of social theories and, conversely, how we can rethink theoretical approaches starting from a perspective of migration (studies).

Contemporary commentators, primarily on the broad right, tend to critique their opponents as being ‘just like a religion’, invoking figures of zealots, dogma, mantras, high priests and so forth. While openness to debate is often a key value of these commentators, this discursive manoeuvre tends to position the other as an unthinking ideologue or a duplicitous manipulator, not worth engagement. This critique has become commonplace from books to social media, disfiguring opponents as ‘post-modernists’, ‘critical social justice’ or ‘woke’ in a negative valance. These ‘iconoclastic critics’ position themselves as reasonable, dedicated to debate, and describe opponents via a dichotomy of ideology and critique, employing metaphors of depth. Crucially, they tend to distort or disfigure their opponents’ claims, redescribing them through religious metaphors. This analysis informs a reflexive consideration of critical discourse generally and considers the extent to which characteristics of this ‘iconoclastic critique’ are shared across political divides.

This article criticizes the pragmatist theory of progress developed by Rahel Jaeggi and argues for a psychologist alternative. In her theory, Jaeggi rejects both moralist and historicist understandings of progress, arguing that progress should be regarded as a non-teleological process of experience enrichment. However, by identifying progress with problem-solving activities, Jaeggi explicitly makes a parallelist argument between social-moral and scientific progress, which is highly questionable. In this analysis, I argue that Jaeggi's analogy fails. And by referring to Kuhn's notion of incommensurability, I demonstrate a more radical, psychologist approach, which departs from any idea of experience enrichment in history. The lack of a sufficient account of progress is not the failure of Kuhn. In contrast, it is his very own insight.

Deliberative democracy advances an emancipatory project of inclusion, equality, and freedom. Yet these ideals have been produced within a context structured by colonial power. This article argues that if deliberative democracy is to unfold its full democratic potential, it needs to face its colonial legacies and position a decolonizing ethos at its center. The article proposes a framework consisting of six moves toward decolonizing deliberative democracy—three deconstructive and three reconstructive: 1. acknowledging modernity's violence; 2. recognizing epistemic injustices within the knowledge production of deliberative democracy; 3. criticizing the colonial drive of deliberative institutions; 4. theorizing from the bottom up by and with Indigenous and marginalized groups; 5. engaging in an open dialogue with the Global South scholarship; 6. focusing on emancipation.

The Anthropocene challenges our ways of relating to the world and our ideas of how to lead a good and ethical life under the threat of climate catastrophe. In this article, two theoretical propositions around how we relate to the world are explored in search for synergies to help outline pathways to a good life: Hartmut Rosa's resonance theory and Margaret S. Archer's reflexivity theory. Both focus on our encounters with the world and suggest ways in which we may formulate private and political concerns and strategies to guide the search for a good life and a good society. Resonance and reflexivity both demand a fundamental openness to the world and suggest how to formulate life strategies that does not ignore the knowledge of climate change but foster and use capacities to engage in collective action towards social change. By integrating resonance and meta-reflexivity, we can form a theoretical basis for an integrated approach to promote such collective action on macro, meso and micro levels.

This paper discusses a shift in contemporary ideological justification and its implications for the critique of ideology. Traditionally, the critique of ideology aimed to dispel ideological illusions. However, it has become increasingly challenging to pinpoint these illusions. Instead, ideological justifications hinge more than ever on functional necessities, presenting themselves as the sole practical solution to a given problem. I argue that ideologies of functional necessities pose problems for the established standard model of ideology. In section 1, I discuss the standard model. In section 2, I introduce the “functionalist challenge” to the notion of ideology and lay out my reasoning for the contended inefficacy of simply dispelling ideological illusions. In section 3, I discuss the resulting problems for a critical theory of ideology and possible ways to address them.

The current ecological emergency is sometimes seen as a new epoch in the history of humankind. The expressions Anthropocene and Great Acceleration are two recent proposals for naming this epoch, which have been and are being widely debated. However, this debate found social theory rather unprepared, with attempts at conceptualizing long-term social change having largely been abandoned in the face of conceptual, methodological, and empirical difficulties decades ago. This essay discusses three recent book publications, the coincidence of which may indicate that the reluctance towards addressing the existence and direction of major socio-historical transformations is about to be overcome. From the angle of social philosophy, Rahel Jaeggi's Fortschritt und Regression (“Progress and regression”) explores in a novel way the question of the normative directedness of history. Based in political and economic sociology, Ingolfur Blühdorn's Unhaltbarkeit (“Intenability”) and Jens Beckert's Verkaufte Zukunft (“Future sold”) focus more explicitly on the ecological emergency, in particular climate change. Reading these three books together, the question arises how the long-term irreversibility of global warming relates to the direction of human history over the past two centuries and the future possibility of change of direction.

This paper challenges the conventional belief that trust is an essential component of social cohesion, for example, in the context of climate change denial and post-truth politics. It argues that simply increasing trust or distrust does not address the underlying issues of contemporary societal challenges. This is because these efforts presuppose a ‘trusting subject’ at the heart of the problem. The paper examines the process of subjectification, exploring forms of modern subjectification and how they relate to trust, and how individuals become trusting subjects in relation to and within certain social frameworks. Introducing a new typology, it categorises trust into subjectifying, counter-subjectifying and post-subjectifying forms, revealing how trust both influences and is influenced by social dynamics and power structures. The conclusion advocates a ‘post-trust’ approach, urging a reimagining of relationships with nature and others. This approach emphasises the interconnectedness of human and non-human actors and calls for new forms of relationality and sensitivity to address global challenges effectively.

The work of Antonio Gramsci implies, in comparison with Karl Marx, a shift toward civil society, rather than state, as an intermediate category between economic structures and political institutions. Gramsci offers indeed an integral state composed of the political society (which exercises coercion) and civil society (which generates consensus). Thus, civil society becomes the site of production and contestation of ideas, the elaboration and diffusion of ideas, or, in other words, the terrain of hegemony. Our objective with this paper is to explore how Gramsci's political theory on civil society as the arena for social and political change can be used to elaborate a theoretical framework to conceptualize and analyze immigration. We highlight four dimensions that translates Gramsci's reflections to the field of immigration: class, space, common sense, and counter-hegemony. Gramsci's theory can, in a few words, contribute to understanding how migrants can question the hegemonic order and contribute to alternative visions of society.