In this thesis, I provide and argue for the Minimalist Declaration View on Art. In short, this institutional understanding of art is that something is art if, and only if, it has been declared art. I argue this by showing first, the strengths and weaknesses of the best available institutional account of art, that is Cathrine Abell’s. I then provide an alternative minimalistic view that keeps Abell’s fruitful use of a Searlean framework and combines it with the recent non-ideal critique directed toward Searle. This novel approach avoids Abell’s problems arising from her pluralist view on art institutions while it, unlike previous institutional accounts, can account for solitary artists. After answering three possible objections concerning the view's empty concept of art, possession of authority, and the value of art, I conclude this view is both a plausible and the preferable institutional account of art.

This thesis draws on the theory and method of social ontology to explore why labour law struggles to provide for wage security and clarity of employment status today. It starts by exploring at a conceptual level the relationship between law and capitalism, before moving on to engage more specifically with the concept of the wage, situating the analysis in a theory of the wage's socio-economic function. The thesis understands the 'wage' as, initially, the market price of the commodity, 'labour power', which is exchanged in the labour market. As with any other 'price', the wage functions to coordinate decision making in the market. At the same time, however, the wage is also the cost of reproducing that commodity, a process which is not confined to the market but takes place in society more generally: this is the function of social reproduction. These two functions are not only conceptually and materially distinct; they are frequently in conflict. The price the market assigns to the labour commodity is not always, and not necessarily, that which is required to cover its costs of (re)production. The thesis shows that these functions of the wage find their expression in the various concepts the legal system uses to describe the payment made by employers to their workers. For example, the legal concept of the 'wage' corresponds closely to the economic idea of the wage as price, and the concept of 'remuneration' to the wage as the cost of social reproduction, shifting some of the social costs of employment onto the employer. How these conceptual tools are deployed, however, and thus how effectively these functions are performed in practice, depends on law's own view of its ontological status: that is, the implicit position that the legal system takes on what constitutes 'social reality' beyond the text of a particular case or statute, and thus its view of whether, and to what extent, legal concepts can shape, as well as respond, to it. The thesis shows that whether the legal system sees its concepts playing an active role in constituting social and economic relations, or whether it sees them as passively reacting to the 'demands' of a 'pre-constituted' economic system makes a difference to the effectiveness of law in practice. Understanding law's implicit ontology in this sense helps us to see why labour law struggles to provide for wage security and clarity of status. Thinking about law's relationship with social reality can thus make an important contribution to our understanding of the problems of low pay and unclear employment status today.

Metaontological discourse, inquiring into the nature, methodology, and aims of ontology, has functioned as the war ground for those skeptical of ontological projects against those who believe that ontological inquiry is substantive (i.e., meaningful, important, worth pursuing). I call the inquiry which engages in determining criteria to distinguish substantive from nonsubstantive inquiry/discourse: “the metaphysics of discourse”. In this project, I identify three frameworks in the metaphysics of discourse: Easy Ontology, The “Merely Verbal” Framework, and Metaphysical Structuralism. My primary concern is to show that these discourse frameworks or dismissive strategies all fail to provide sufficient criteria to properly delineate substantive from non-substantive inquiry. My approach is to accept a dismissive strategy, apply it to disputes in the metaphysics of race and gender, and run through its consequences. Each framework, when applied to disputes in the metaphysics of race and gender, incorrectly renders the disputes non-substantive. These implications are unacceptable, because the disputes in metaphysics of race and gender are prima facie substantive disputes. We find that each application of a dismissive strategy provides us the basis for developing a web of problematic assumptions running throughout the metaphysics of discourse. Namely: 1) that the metaphysics of discourse itself can be robustly normatively neutral, 2) that discovering linguistic defects in an inquiry (often about “the meaning” or “the right meaning” of terms) is sufficient to conclude that an inquiry is non-substantive and that 3) we determine a better candidate for theory choice in substantive inquiry by determining which candidate is more objectively accurate (in a vague sense). I will conclude that these assumptions lead to an oppressive metaphysics of discourse, then I briefly suggest a feminist, pragmatist, and democratic-objective basis for a new one.

According to many philosophers and scientists, human sociality is explained by our unique capacity to ‘share’ the mental states of others and to form collective intentional states. Collective intentionality has been widely debated in the past two decades, focusing especially on the issue of its reducibility to individual intentionality and the place of collective intentions in the natural realm. It is not clear, however, to what extent these two issues are related, and what methodologies of investigation are appropriate in each case. In this thesis I set out a theory of the naturalization of collective intentionality that draws a line between naturalizability arguments and theories of collective intentionality naturalized. The former provide reasons for believing in the naturalness of collective intentional states based on our commonsense understanding of them; the latter offer responses to the ontological question about the existence and identity of collective as distinct from individual intentionality. This model is naturalistic because it holds that the only way to establish the place of mental entities in the order of things is through the theory and practice of science. After reviewing naturalizability arguments in philosophy, I consider an influential research program in the cognitive sciences. On the account that I present, the irreducibility of collective intentionality can be derived from a theory of human development in scientific psychology dealing with phenomena of sociality like communication, recently refined by Michael Tomasello.

Dans leurs lectures respectives de la critique marxienne de l’économie politique, Louis Althusser et Antonio Negri ont tous deux tenté de compléter cette critique par une lecture originale de la philosophie moderne de Baruch Spinoza. Notre thèse est que dans cette articulation des corpus de Marx et de Spinoza, il est possible de reconstruire une théorie originale de l’être social, ou en d’autres termes, une ontologie sociale hétérodoxe, dont la dominante peut-être caractérisée comme une prise de position « néo-spinoziste » en théorie critique. / In their respective readings of Marx’s critique of political economy, Louis Althusser and Antonio Negri have both attempted to complement this critique with an original reading of the Early Modern philosophy of Baruch Spinoza. Our claim is that in this articulation of Marx and Spinoza’s corpuses, one can reconstruct an original theory of social being, or in other words, a heterodox social ontology, whose dominant can be characterized as a “neo-Spinozist” position in critical theory.

À quel type d’ontologie fait-on appel lorsqu’on affirme que le capitalisme est une forme d’organisation sociale spécifique et historiquement dépassable ? C’est pour répondre à cette question que nous entreprenons dans cette étude une lecture des Manuscrits économico-philosophiques de 1844. À partir de l’analyse de leur contexte jeune-hégélien d’élaboration comme des enjeux de leur réception dans le marxisme, nous soutenons la thèse selon laquelle Marx s’appuie dans ces manuscrits sur une description critique de l’expérience de l’aliénation pour développer une ontologie processuelle de la société. Cette ontologie conjugue une théorie des formes aliénantes qui structurent le monde social (argent, division du travail, propriété privée) à une théorie du contenu aliéné sous ces formes (forces et objets essentiels, nature et être générique). Le modèle critique qui se dégage ainsi – que nous proposons de qualifier de « critique ontologique du capitalisme – a produit de profonds effets sur les différentes tentatives accomplies, de Herbert Marcuse à Louis Althusser et de Georg Lukács à Antonio Negri, pour conférer au projet d’une transformation radicale de la société l’ontologie qu’il mérite. Et c’est par l’évaluation de ces effets qu’il est possible de poser à nouveaux frais la question des ruptures et des continuités entre les Manuscrits de 1844 et Le Capital. / What type of ontology is mobilized when one asserts that capitalism is a form of social organization which is specific and can be historically overcome? In order to answer this question, we proceed in this study to a reading of the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Starting with an analysis of their young-Hegelian context of elaboration as well as of the stakes of their reception within Marxism, I argue that Marx in these manuscripts builds upon a critical description of the experience of alienation to develop a processual ontology of society. This ontology combines a theory of the alienated forms that structure the social world (money, division of labour, private property) and a theory of the content alienated under these forms (essential forces and objects, nature and species-being). The critical model that emerges here – which can be described as a “critical ontology of capitalism” - has produced profound effects on the different attempts by theoreticians, from Herbert Marcuse to Louis Althusser and from Georg Lukács to Antonio Negri, to confer to the project of a radical transformation of society the ontology it deserves. And it is by the evaluation of its effects that it become possible to formulate anew the question of the ruptures and continuities between the Manuscripts of 1844 and Capital.

No description available.

Karl Marx (1818-1883) a consacré son œuvre à l’explicitation d’une philosophie sociale du capitalisme et de son dépassement. Ce mémoire cherche à rendre compte de la spécificité de la domination capitaliste au travers du prisme des concepts d’objectivation et d’aliénation. Après avoir éclairé leurs sources chez Hegel et Feuerbach, nous défendons l’idée qu’il faut lire de façon plurielle le concept d’objectivation dans les Manuscrits de 1844, afin de saisir la constitution de l’objectivité par les médiations sociales et historiques. Des Manuscrits de 1844 au Capital, l’aliénation est alors comprise comme la domination d’une abstraction réelle, médiation sociale à laquelle les êtres humains ont remis la régulation de leurs rapports sociaux. / Karl Marx (1818-1883) devoted his work to an explicitation of a social philosophy of capitalism and its overthrow. This master’s thesis aims to specify the capitalist domination by analyzing the concepts of objectivation and alienation. After an initial clarification of these concepts drawing from Hegel and Feuerbach, we defend the necessity to adopt a plural reading of the concept of objectivation in the Manuscripts from 1844 in order to fully understand the constitution of objectivity through social and historical mediations. From this last work to The Capital, alienation can be understood as the domination of a real abstraction, a social mediation to which humans had given the power to regulate their social interactions.

[pt] O objetivo da presente tese é duplo. Por um lado, pretende-se questionar o posicionamento metodológico de Potts em suas tentativas de construir modelos para o significado dos expressivos. Por outro, argumento que uma interpretação correta do valor semântico dos expressivos deve considerar o vínculo que, a meu ver, tais termos entretêm com a ontologia social; já que o que as pessoas fazem com a linguagem está vinculado com a estrutura social em que o uso da linguagem se encontra inserido. A seguir, apresento a estrutura da tese. No primeiro capítulo, são analisados os dois modelos semânticos elaborados (respectivamente, em 2005 e 2007) por Potts para dar conta do comportamento específico dos expressivos. No segundo capítulo, procuro esclarecer seu posicionamento sobre o valor semântico dos expressivos; tendo em vista que, para operar com seus modelos, Potts se vale de uma definição funcional (working definition). No terceiro capítulo, questiono a principal tese defendida por Potts, a saber, que os expressivos formam uma classe semântica natural delimitada por um conjunto de propriedades notáveis. Para esses fins, argumento que as propriedades distintivas atribuídas por ele aos expressivos não conseguem circunscrever com nitidez uma categoria semântica. No quarto capítulo, apresento uma proposta alternativa de interpretação do valor semântico dos expressivos, a qual leva em consideração o caráter normativo do conteúdo expressivo. Neste ponto, faço minha a visão de Williamson (2009) sobre o maior poder explanatório deste tipo de interpretação com relação às diversas questões sociais e linguísticas que se colocam para os termos investigados. No quinto e último capítulo, argumento que uma interpretação correta do valor semântico dos expressivos deve acomodar, para além da dimensão normativa do conteúdo expressivo, insights oriundos da área de ontologia social, uma vez que o significado dos termos expressivos se encontra fortemente vinculado à posição social das pessoas que desempenham determinados papéis no discurso. / [en] The aim of this thesis is twofold. On the one hand, I question Potts s methodological stance in his attempts to build models for the meaning of pejoratives. On the other hand, I argue that a correct construal of the semantic value of expressives must take into account their ties with social ontology, given that what people do with language is tied to the social structure in which language use takes place. The thesis is framed as follows. In the first chapter, I analyze two semantic models successively designed by Potts (respectively, in 2005 and 2007) in order to account for the specific behavior of expressives. Next, I set myself the task of clarifying the stance behind the accounts, having in view the functional definition needed to operate with the models. In the third chapter, I question Potts s main thesis according to which expressives form among themselves a natural semantic class marked out by a set of salient properties. To this end, I argue that the alleged distinctive properties of expressives do not circumscribe a clear-cut semantic category. In the fourth chapter, I present an alternative to Pott s construal of the semantic value of expressives that takes into account the normative character of expressive content. At this stage, I embrace Williamson s view about the higher explanatory power of this type of construal with respect to the variety of social and linguistic issues raised by the investigated terms. In the fifth and last chapter, I argue that a correct construal of the semantic value of expressives must accommodate, in addition to the normative dimension of expressive content, a number of insights from social ontology, given that the meaning of expressives is strongly tied to the social position occupied by people in virtue of their role in discourse.

This essay aims to shed light upon the philosophical dignity of Edith Stein’s critique of the early Heideggerian conception of sociality in her text ”Martin Heideggers Existenzphilosophie”, from 1936. I will argue that Stein’s critique of Heidegger’s concept of sociality comes to be substantiated through her existential-philosophical approach to his understanding of the transcendent character of Dasein. By objecting to Heidegger’s definition of Dasein as ecstatic temporality, Stein points out his inattentiveness to authentic otherness in Being and Time, which reaches out into a problem surrounding Mitsein. I will further demonstrate how Stein, by ascribing to Dasein an enduring and sustaining quality in the midst of ecstasy, uses Heidegger’s concept of Dasein in order to formulate her own social ontology.