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In this paper, I intend to reconstruct the main points of Taylor's politics of recognition, starting from the debate about negative and positive liberties. Then, I will focus on the role of the ideal of authenticity in this conception of freedom, as well as on the dialogical conception of the self. Furthermore, I will develop the political consequences of these ideas. In addition to examining McBride's argument about the oppressive character of recognition, I will also address Fraser's objection concerning the sectarian character of Taylor's theory. Furthermore, I also consider Ikäheimo's criticisms in respect to the problem of integration between the horizontal and vertical forms of recognition, the issue of affirmative action, and the idea of a passive subjectivity. Finally, I will centre on Axel Honneth's criticisms to Taylor's idea of recognition in terms of its lack of clarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many geographers, past and present, have addressed public policy issues facing nations and peoples and in the process offered solutions to highly complex problems. Three ‘sentinels’ of the discipline, Halford Mackinder, Carl Sauer and Thomas Griffith Taylor, served as protectors of geography speaking up for the science in a way often confronting public officials, politicians and others. They contributed significantly to the development of geography in Britain, the USA, Australia and Canada, while engaging in public policy debates on topics such as geopolitics, geographical constraints on land use and natural resource management. All three were advocates for the unity of geography, stressing how an understanding of the interconnectedness of natural and human phenomena can assist in decision making. They were often frustrated by what they saw as ill-informed policies which did not respect geographic realities. Given their varied contributions, it is difficult to fully assess their impact both during their long and productive lifetimes, and subsequently, especially given the interdisciplinary and contested nature of their research. Today, academic geographers are faced with having to increasingly ‘prove the impact’ of their research, something beyond the comprehension of previous generations. Lessons from an analysis of the work of these ‘sentinels’, as well as my own experience, show how difficult a task this will be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Moral realism has been advanced as a central theme in contemporary hermeneutic thought. From this standpoint, participation in cultural practices is made possible and meaningful by ontologically real moral goods and reference points. Cultural practices thus constitute a moral referential totality for human action. This article suggests that these and related hermeneutic insights offer a unique perspective for taking account of practical involvement in the world and can form the basis of an interpretive frame for research that foregrounds this practice-based moral realism. An emphasis on moral realist concepts such as participation in practice, distinctions of worth, strong evaluations, and moral reference points can allow interrelated phenomena to show up as aspects of a moral ecology and reveal something about their moral significance within a form of practice. Moreover, inquiry of this sort can reveal something about that form of practice as a space of moral possibilities for action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In her famous text ‘Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism’, Martha Nussbaum argued for cosmopolitan education in ways that evoked a tension between cosmopolitanism and patriotism. Among others, Charles Taylor considered her treatment of patriotism vague and lopsided, and pointed out that patriotism is not as secondary or as dispensable as Nussbaum seemed to imply. Later, Nussbaum gradually reconsidered the notion of patriotism in texts that remained largely unknown and rarely discussed. This article begins with a brief account of her shift from cosmopolitanism to what she terms ‘a globally sensitive patriotism,’ and the task assigned to education within this framework. The examples Nussbaum uses to illustrate the principles she proposes for teaching patriotism are then discussed. Her conception of patriotism reflects broader preoccupations concerning patriotism in liberal and communitarian political philosophy and education that overlook what can be termed ‘an outward aspect of patriotism.’ In light of this critique, I attempt to formulate an account of patriotism that may be in line (rather than in tension) with cosmopolitanism and quite different from current liberal or communitarian patriotic accounts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article explores two rival understandings of production and what it means to be a rational productive subject. Against 'technicist' models of productive reason, it defends a 'phrenetic' model on both normative and pragmatic grounds. The discussion begins with a description of the general principles underpinning technicist theories of workplace organisation, principles which continue to inform work design approaches to this day. The technicist model is thereafter criticised on three counts: that it represents a specific managerial agenda which privileges sectional interests; that it is suspect morally for a number of reasons; and that despite its aspiration of arriving at 'one best method', it represents but one way of organising work processes. The phrenetic model is then set out using the notion of 'practices' as a guide. This notion is important in providing a view of production in which technical reason is subsumed under a broader practical reason incorporating individual experience and judgement. Against the charge that this view is merely an instance of nostalgic craft romanticism having little relevance to present industrial realities, there are recognisable contemporary instances of phrenetic production, one of the most interesting being Volvo's innovations in automotive assembly systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By using ‘the return’ as a dialectical figure, the author discusses four contemporary appropriations of Hegelian dialectics – as restoration, recollection, repetition, and interpellation – in relation to the concept of recognition in contemporary political philosophy. They are seen in the light of social and political forces influencing European and North American intellectual debates from the events of 1989 to the aftermath of 9/11. By a critique of Charles Taylor's work, it is argued that Hegelian return conceived as restoration sets recognition as an act of self-appropriation through social mediation. Recognition becomes a means for self-unification through identity affirmation, a coming back to oneself as undistorted. The author subsequently sketches out two alternative appropriations of Hegelian dialectics in relation to questions of recognition: as recollection and repetition. The dialectical return understood as recollection turns recognition into an acknowledgement of intersubjective vulnerability. It sets the return to oneself as a peripeteian force, focusing on the unpredictable rebounding effects of one's own actions, a view advocated by Patchen Markell. Recognition becomes a movement toward self-expropriation if it turns on the necessary failures, indeed, on the impossibility of the return. The return as repetition becomes the place-holder for a unity that will never be. Jean-Luc Nancy is seen as an exponent of this perspective. The author ends by arguing for an understanding of the dialectical return as an interpellative force which turns our attention from recognition to recognizability, that is, from the relation between self and others to the social space and practices governing the space in which people appear as recognizable to each other, in line with the latest work of Judith Butler. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recognition of cultural groups is an issue that puzzles those involved in the discussions around multiculturalism. Charles Taylor (1994) has done important groundwork in his ‘The politics of recognition’ where different possibilities of multicultural policy-making are discussed. This article concentrates on one social ontological problem that can be found in Taylor’s widely recognized theory. This article proceeds as follows. At first, Taylor's view on recognition is briefly introduced. This view potentially faces the reification problem, which states that recognizing a group that is not really an agent might result in misrecognition and disrespect of individual members of the group. The forms of misrecognition and disrespect range from homogenizing sets of individuals to forced identities anddissonance between individual and collective identities. After the problems of cultural recognition have been made clear, insights from the field of social ontology are brought into the picture. The agency of cultural groups is not self-evident, and in this paper it is argued that Taylor faces a problem when he grants agency to certain kinds of groups that are not really agents. This can be shown using the tools provided by contemporary analytical social ontology. Finally, a tentative way of conceptualizing cultural recognition is offered. The suggestion is that, despite its vagueness, Taylor's position includes elements that enable incorporating a robust social ontological theory into it. If this is done, many of the worries stated in the reification problem might be avoided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In cost-effectiveness analysis, interest could lie foremost in the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER), which is the ratio of the incremental cost to the incremental benefit of two competing interventions. The average cost-effectiveness ratio (ACER) is the ratio of the cost to benefit of an intervention without reference to a comparator. A vast literature is available for statistical inference of the ICERs, but limited methods have been developed for the ACERs, particularly in the presence of censoring. Censoring is a common feature in prospective studies, and valid analyses should properly adjust for censoring in cost as well as in effectiveness. In this article, we propose statistical methods for constructing a confidence interval for the ACER from censored data. Different methods—Fieller, Taylor, bootstrap—are proposed, and through simulation studies and data analysis, we address the performance characteristics of these methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The insinuation by the phrase “the meaning of life” of a transcendental human identity and purpose seems only to leave itself vulnerable, in an era of incredulity towards transcendental signifieds, to the derisory, deflationary treatment of comedy (Monty Python's The Meaning of Life and Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy being two conspicuous examples). Questions to do with the nature, meaning and purpose of human life nevertheless persist in popular culture, if not in academia, where explicit reference to such essentialist and large-scale concepts as “the human” and “the human condition” tend to be viewed with suspicion. There are signs, however, of a return to the human subject, not only in literary studies, but across a range of disciplines concerned with the possibility of a re-animated humanism. The pertinent question is, then, what version of “the human” literary studies in particular might return to. The introduction to this special issue will argue for a “soft essentialism” that is not a rigid blueprint but nevertheless affirms that human life unfolds within a definable number of possibilities. What we call “literature”, as conventionally epitomized by Shakespeare, may be seen as the complex elaboration of these possibilities in such as a way as to provoke, but not to answer, questions about the meaning of life. Thus defined, the “new humanism” within literary studies is a dialectical corrective to a hard-line disenchanted scepticism which converts areas of potentially significant human activity, such as literature itself, into “alienated objects” voided of existential significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

F. W. Taylor (1856–1915) is a seminal figure in the history of industrial society and a key reference point for the study of technology, work and the organization of production. This paper locates Taylor's work in the broad historical development of formal systems and ‘rational’ management. The paper notes the historical continuities that link the ‘technologies of control’ which emerged in US industry during Taylor's lifetime and those which appear in contemporary work organizations. This is counterpoised with recent comment on the information technology and the ‘end’ of Taylorist work practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Juxtaposing Pierre Trudeau and Charles Taylor allows for assessing not simply an epoch in Canadian political life but more fundamentally two contrasting visions of modern government and society. The key is not in the usual contrasts: liberalism versus communitarianism or individual rights versus collective rights; but in the opposition between Trudeau’s centralized and Taylor’s decentralized vision of federalism. What emerges from analyzing that familiar difference is significant and ironic. While Taylor’s view seems more cognizant of government’s formative activity and of culture in politics, it is Trudeau’s view that better upholds: (1) the role of government as both an instrument of common purposes and a protector of individual rights; (2) the significance of culture as both a carrier of democratic values and an array of distinctive ways of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The allocation of self-determination rights to minority groups is a highly charged issue around the world, but the difficulties are particularly acute in the case of indigenous peoples within the white settler states. While liberal multiculturalism offers a 'solution' to this 'problem of diversity' through a system of differentiated citizenship rights, this comes only at the expense of excluding dissenting voices from the intercultural dialogue. Through an engagement with the multi-faceted critique of liberal multiculturalism advanced by Native American political theory, the limits of the recognition paradigm are identified, and the possibilities offered by a reconstructed Proudhonian federalism are described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Charles Taylor's attempt to map the complexity and fullness of the modern identity has led him to recuperate its moral sources. This paper explores the zone of ontological contestation Taylor has engaged by defending a notion of the self that does not succumb to a narrowing or partiality of vision. Taylor's criticisms of Michel Foucault and Jürgen Habermas are examined to draw out the features of his project and its own limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]