Submitted by Maike Costa (maiksebas@gmail.com) on 2017-09-20T11:52:24Z No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 1993118 bytes, checksum: e81f56985e6dcfa48785fcb0abd47f2a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-09-20T11:52:24Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 1993118 bytes, checksum: e81f56985e6dcfa48785fcb0abd47f2a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-03-20 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / Starting from the realistic perspective outlined by Hegel's Political philosophy that research clarifies his concept of "Ethical State" by taking into account two crucial moments for its foundation: first, Hegel's criticism of utopian thinking as a shortcoming answer to the problem of State; and second, Hegel's conception as supersession of the essential moments that State itself unfolds throughout history, both in its notional reality (Realitlit) as well as in its actuality (Wirklichkeit). Accordingly, we reconstruct first Hegel's conception of State starting from his interpretation of the Greek organic State in light of Platonic political philosophy; then, we investigate Hegel's critical dialogue with modern political philosophy, in particular the natural law school. Thus, we demonstrate that Hegel's Concept of State was developed as a result of criticizing utopian thinking, considered by Hegel as an obstacle to the development of actual Ethical State, which emerges as the unique locus for achieving substantial freedom out of self-conscious subjectivity. Briefly, our goal is to demonstrate that Hegel's "Ethical State" not only involves the denial of any idealistic conception, but also that the State is a permanent ethical construction characterized by the effective participation of people, expressed by a set of laws mirroring their ethos. Thus, we show that for Hegel there is no a priori ideal model to set up an Ethical State, in so far as its truth results from the historical and social reality of peoples and its establishment is linked to the ability people can have to make its concept effective, viz. to make it coincide its essence with its existence. / Partindo da perspectiva realistica da filosofia politica tracada por Hegel, essa pesquisa se prop& a esclarecer o conceito de Estado Etico levando em consideracao dois momentos cruciais para a fundamentacao do mesmo; primeiro, a negacao do pensamento utopico como uma possivel resposta para a necessidade de se pensar os problemas relativos ao Estado, e segundo, enquanto suprassuncao dos momentos de construcao estatal ao longo da Historia, seja em seu real (ReaNat), seja em seu real efetivo (Wirklichkeit). Para tanto, tracamos um itinerario que nos conduz do Estado organico grego e de sua sistematizacao na filosofia politica platonica, ate o dialogo de Hegel com os pensadores da modernidade, em especial com a escola jusnaturalista, a fim de demonstrar que o conceito hegeliano foi elaborado como uma consequencia critica ao pensamento utopico, considerado por Hegel um empecilho ao desenvolvimento do Estado Etico, que representa o locus privilegiado para consecucao da liberdade substancial, resultante da subjetividade autoconsciente. Nosso objetivo é demonstrar que o Estado Etico é nab apenas a negacao de um momento determinado idealmente, mas principalmente que se constitui numa construcao permanente e que se caracteriza pela participacao efetiva do ethos do povo ratificado no conjunto de leis que o representa. Desta forma, nao ha um modelo pre-estabelecido para definir o Estado Etico, antes sua verdade é resultante da multiforme realidade historico-social dos povos, seu estabelecimento esta vinculado a capacidade de um povo em realizar seu proprio conceito, ou seja, sua capacidade para fazer coincidir sua essencia e sua existencia.

The purpose of this work is an interpretation of the essay Argirópolis written by Argentine author Domingo Faustino Sarmiento. This work aims to determine the aspects of the essay and the utopia in Sarmiento΄s work; the interpretation, i. e. reading of the text in wider context, integrates Argirópolis into the contexts of the essay and the utopia in order for the present work to transcend the writing΄s historical ambit and portray the timelessness of Sarmiento΄s ideas. The first part of this work examines the essayistic genre, describes its genesis and sources in Europe and Latin America. This section accentuates the singularity of the Latin American essayistic tradition and presents the basic characterization of the form of essay. The analysis of essayistic aspects of Sarmiento΄s book is based on characteristic attributes of the essay. The second part of the work is focused on the utopia. In the context of the utopia, this work attempts to elucidate why Sarmiento preferred the genre of essay to the novelistic genre, while creating a book containing utopian aspects. The last part of the present work is focused on the peculiarity of the Latin American utopian thinking and includes the analysis of the aspects of the utopia in Argirópolis.

This thesis is meant to give an explication on Fredric Jameson¡¦s Utopian thinking through transcoding, establishing homologies between Lacan¡¦s Imaginary/Symbolic/Real registers, Althusser¡¦s ideology/History binary and Jameson¡¦s ideology/cognitive mapping/History orders. I think Jameson¡¦s Utopian thinking is a mechanism of praxis to induce change for a classless and human-friendly society through theoretical education on desire and formation of consciousness of the capitalistic alienation and exploitation. It is a process of signifying, with no signified. It aims at the construction of a map of the social totality, not at that of an imaginary blueprint. It stresses consciousness-raising, not goal achievement. Traditionally, Utopia features an imaginary blueprint. Nevertheless, for Jameson, the Utopian blueprint is problematic in that it is ideologically enclosed so that it is far from qualified to serve as the goal of praxis. At best, a Utopian blueprint can only be viewed as a ¡§figure¡¨ waiting for the interpretation of theory, or to put it psychoanalytically, it is a symptom of the (political) unconscious awaiting the diagnosis of a psychoanalyst. But Jameson does endorse Utopists¡¦ ¡§Utopian praxis¡¨ to map and criticize their respective social context. The critic applies the practice to the postmodern, in which time is spatialized and the individual is fragmented and deprived of the ability to think historically and to imagine an alternative future. Jameson proposes the approach of ¡§cognitive mapping¡¨ to help people to obtain a map of the postmodern hyperspace, to locate their positions in it, and to finally reconstruct in them class consciousness, which Jameson believes is the basis of praxis for a Utopia. This task has to be done through the construction of the collective subject, because of the death of the subject and the growing abstraction of postmodern hyperspace. And certainly in this undertaking, Marxist critics like Jameson play an important role. They, like a psychoanalyst, are entitled to diagnose and interpret what the current world is suffering from and to offer prescriptions. In conclusion, Fredric Jameson¡¦s Utopian thinking is a persistent process of praxis at present to form collective consciousness and subjectivity in the hope of an unspecified Utopia in the future, which is supposed to be a communist one.

My dissertation is concerned with utopian thinking in Critical Theory. It examines the changing conceptions of radically different social orders held by the associates of the Frankfurt School. Its aim is to investigate utopian thinking as a theoretical tool of a system of thought that is oriented towards social transformation. To bring about social transformation was the explicit objective of the Frankfurt School. And yet, as my dissertation demonstrates, some of the key member of the Frankfurt School discarded precisely this utopian tool. This rejection of utopian thinking is one of the central – but also one of the most problematic – aspects of Critical Theory. It goes back to the writings of Marx himself and culminates in the works of Theodor W. Adorno, specifically in his ‘Utopieverbot’ (prohibition of envisaging a utopian society). I argue that this Utopieverbot facilitated the disappearance of utopian thinking in Critical Theory, and furthermore, that it brought this system of thought to a standstill. In addition to the dissolution of utopian thinking my dissertation examines also its potential resuscitation. The foremost defender of utopian thinking I investigate is Ernst Bloch, a critical theorist overshadowed by Adorno himself. Countering Adorno, Bloch posited utopian thinking not only as a possible but also as a necessary theoretical tool of Critical Theory. I argue that Bloch’s ideas can be valuable in resolving the aporia of utopian thinking in Critical Theory. While important in its own right, this aporia is highly significant due to the enormous influence it exerted on the death of utopia in Western political thought, which can be seen as one of the key factors contributing to the escalating social, political and economic regressions of our contemporary era. Understanding the reasons behind the emergence of death of utopia, as well as its possible resolutions, thus present questions that urgently need to be addressed.

Apparently the existence of deepgoing antinomies in our system of contracts is an experience too painful to rise to the full level of our consciousnes. In the current transformative milieu, the South African law of contract continues its attempts to convey an image of contract as a coherent system of clear and neutral rules. These attempts stem from the belief that the rule-book, in and of itself, can offer us determinate answers in all contractual disputes. This study was borne out of a concern that in its commitments to sustain this image, the South African law of contract is not sufficiently concerned with transformation and the ideal of justice. In the seventies, Kennedy exposed the ambivalence of the contract system and argued that private law vividly reflected the fundamental contradiction; the irresolvable tension in and among us between acting purely out of self-interest or allowing our actions to be informed, influenced and curtailed by others. Kennedy asserted that the fundamental contradiction could be construed as a continuum with two opposing ‘ideal typical’ positions on both the level of form and substance. On the substance level he referred to this warring engagement as individualism and altruism. On the form level, the ideal typical commitments prefer law either in the form of rules or as open-ended standards. Kennedy’s most provocative claim was that individualism preferred law in the form of rules whereas altruism favoured the open-ended standard form. This claim reflected the understanding that form and substance are interdependent because it is impossible not to ask: ‘Form of what?’ Dalton later added more explicitly that form and substance would politically always generate a hierarchy within a legal system. Following Kennedy, this study engages with the South African law of contract in a similar way. It argues that the South African law of contract not only reflects the fundamental contradiction profoundly, but also privileges and works to sustain the individualism/rule position. This position is not sufficiently concerned with the ethical element of contract (good faith) and with the ideal of contractual justice. I consider whether and how the transition from a totalitarian state to a constitutional democracy affected this hierarchy. I arrive at disappointing but nevertheless hopeful conclusions in the sense that the bias inculcated in the law of contract cannot take anything away from the fact that it operates in the penumbra of a Constitution which is committed to openness, equality, dignity and freedom in all human relationships, including those of a contractual nature. In resisting the traditional representations of contract and in support of the above, I propose a re-emphasis on good faith as the ethical element of contract. Good faith cannot be contained in a neat and tidy legal definition. It realises that we are, in the community of contracting persons, each responsible for the other’s well-being and that we should ultimately remain concerned with the constitutive values of the supreme law under which the subordinated but indispensable law of contract must continue to operate. The difficulty and complexity of this exercise provides no alibi. Copyright 2005, University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. Please cite as follows: Barnard, AJ 2005, A critical legal argument for contractual justice in the South African law of contract, LLD thesis, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd < http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-06192006-083839/ > / Thesis (LLD)--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Jurisprudence / LLD / Unrestricted