Philosophy

The posthumous publication, in 2018, of Foucault's Confessions of the Flesh, volume four of The History of Sexuality, defied expectations, both by his choice of the ancient authors he studied and by his broadening of the problems he explored. Based on the archives kept at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, this article formulates, for the first time, a series of hypotheses concerning the stages in which Foucault composed this 'Christian' volume over a period of more than six years. The three moments distinguished here correspond to three different ways of approaching the initial problem, formulated in 1975, of the history of the confession of sexuality. Whereas scholars have hitherto assumed that Foucault abandoned his first project during a long period of doubts or hesitations, the archives show, on the contrary, a continuous and coherent work-which does not exclude major evolutions in terms of the corpus, periods, and themes studied. In particular, over the years Foucault's project appears increasingly torn between two different histories: a history of confession, which was at the heart of the initial project, and a history of moral experience, which, in an analysis of the self, interiorizes the history of sexuality.

Foucault famously stated in his 1966 book The Order of Things that 'man is an invention of recent date', and 'one perhaps nearing its end'. The aim of this paper is to make sense of the Foucauldian assumption that what we understand by 'man' (or 'the human') today is a modern notion. It will do so by tracing its origin back to the Kantian project and the Enlightenment, following its subsequent trajectory in Nietzsche, Foucault himself, and then finally in Transhumanism and Posthumanism. It will also show how this notion has been consistently challenged in our culture, exploring the possibility of its end and overcoming, which has been announced with Nietzsche's proclamation of the 'death of God' and of the Übermensch as the next logical step in the development of humankind, and finds its expression today in the Transhumanist and Posthumanist projects, which put the emphasis on the imperative to provide an alternative to what appears to be an outdated and problematic concept as it is.

During the early days of his intellectual career, French philosopher and Historian of ideas Michel Foucault developed an interest for what we can call the 'anthropological question', or how our modernity deals with human nature from an epistemological and discursive standpoint. This led him in turn to make the provocative assertion that, 'man' (or 'the human'), as we conceive it today, might disappear in the near future, 'like a face drawn in sand at the edge of the sea'. While Foucault exposed such insights more than half a century ago, they appear to be more actual than ever today with the development and rise in popularity of philosophical movements such as Transhumanism and Posthumanism, which are challenging and proposing a radical alternative to the concepts of 'man' or 'human nature' in our culture. The aim of this paper will be to show the relevance of Foucault (and in particular his archaeological method) in understanding and assessing the nature and scope of the Transhumanism (and Posthumanism)-understood as discourses that are literally reshaping the way we understand ourselves as human beings in the (post)modern age-, drawing for that on a number of key texts from the early productions of Foucault.

Philosophy of law is a branch of philosophy and jurisprudence that seeks to
answer basic questions about law and legal systems, such as ‘What is law?’,
‘What are the criteria for legal validity?’, ‘What is the relationship between
law and morality?’, and many other similar questions. I will be dealing with
question of justice and will be concerned with the strategy of denying, attacking
and reversing victim and offender (DARVO) in state institutions
with some references to Hegel:

There is so much more to be said and so much to be done. Many have proposed planetary government models, common good models and so on and so forth, but the model discussed in this short article incorporates some scientific discoveries that will change our future once and for all. It is important to keep in mind that this article is part of a more detailed research, and it tentatively projects and promotes a model of the common good that is general enough and at the same time, hopefully, clear enough to start off a discussion on humanity’s quest for (subconsciously or consciously) becoming a Type I civilisation. Thinking as a species is perhaps humanity’s most ambitious goal.

What really makes us human is the prediction machine in our heads - from daydreaming to movies - running scenarios is the most unique activity humans possess. Despite the fact that some authors like Vinge argue that science-fiction authors cannot write realistic post-singularity  characters which surpass the human intellect, as the thoughts of such an intellect would be beyond the ability of humans to express, there is a lot of sense in linking science fiction works  to Nick Bostrom’s hypothesis, stating that we may be living in a simulated universe

This paper briefly explores the past, present and future of democracy within the context of the common good. From the direct democracy of the popular assemblies in the Greek polis to the crowd-sourcing of ideas in e-democracy - seemingly this concept is coming to a full circle.  The democratic process is at its most fundamental level a form of collective decision-making, however, it also encompasses many more values than just the balloting at elections. So much so that, the notion of democracy has developed into a sophisticated set of rules designed to implement and guarantee the common well-being of a given community. Indeed, democracy is still the best political set-up that western civilisation has to offer. Nevertheless, democracy is not a perfect system. In reality, it could be said that, since its inception democracy backfired utterly when inter alia: (a) it condemned Socrates to death; and relatively more recently (b) when it democratically elected the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei to power and now again (c) by allowing populism to rise to power in different parts of our planet. Finally, whilst Plato’s “ship metaphor” may not be exact, it certainly highlights the issue that the best citizens to guide a democratic government are not always elected to do so. Everything points towards one solution: well informed citizens who are capable of right reason. In other words: not just “philosopher kings” but “philosopher citizens”.

In the final analysis, whilst Plato’s “ship metaphor” may not be exact, it certainly highlights the issue that the best citizens to guide a democratic government are not always elected to do so. Everything points towards one solution: well informed citizens who are capable of right reason. In other words: not just “philosopher kings” but “philosopher citizens”.

U bl-istess mod, jien qed
naħseb dwar, ngħidu aħna, ilbioenġinerija.
Xi pajjiżi jibżgħu
jesperimentaw ġenetikament fuq
il-bnedmin13 – mhux biżżejjed
jekk pajjiż wieħed jew ftit pajjiżi
biss jipprojbixxu legalment
esperimenti ġenetiċi fuq ilbnedmin.
U mbagħad ikollok iċĊina
jew il-Korea ta’ Fuq li
jibqgħu jagħmlu dan lisperimentar.
B’dan l-argument
l-Istati Uniti jew ir-Renju Unit
ma jistgħux isolvu waħidhom,
kif se jkun fi żmien qasir, dan ittip
ta’ problemi globali. Ilpressjoni
fuq l-Istati Uniti u l-
Ingilterra (qed nieħu dawn biss
bħala eżempju) se tkun kbira
ħafna sabiex jibdew jagħmlu listess
esperimenti bħall-Korea
ta’ Fuq u ċ-Ċina. Dawn huma
teknoloġiji li jikkomportaw
riskji enormi u anki vantaġġji
enormi. Għaliex bil-mentalità
populista jekk pajjiż ieħor qed
jagħmel xi ħaġa u se jikseb
vantaġġ (anki jekk immedjat)
ma nistax ma nagħmilhiex jien
għall-pajjiżi.

If suicide - (perhaps the highest form of self-harm) - goes against the basic human value of life, then correspondingly “unreasonableness” goes against the basic human and irreducible value of “practical reasonableness”, as developed by the Oxford scholar John Finnis.
According to this view, practical reasonableness is the type of reasoning that we use to make decisions about how to act and how to order our lives. Also according to this view the other basic values are pursued with the help of this “reasonableness”. There are nine requirements of practical reasonableness that will be briefly tackled during the talk.
Alan argues that activities like wars, terrorism, racism, separatism, may well appear as benefitting one individual group (say, a nation) over another and thus appear reasonably practical. However, he argues, that in the short, medium and long term all these activities have serious intrinsic consequences on the perpetrator and obviously on the target, making the whole national and international community unstable. It is in other words, a self-harm situation.
Alan will mainly tackle two of these requirements in his talk, namely: the seventh requirement which states that one should never commit an act that directly harms a basic value, even if it will indirectly benefit a different basic value; and the eighth requirement which states that one should look after the common good of the community. Alan will discuss why the aforementioned activities are acts of self-harm, besides of general harm, and why do they go against practical reason, making them “practically unreasonable”.
As always there will be more questions asked than answers given. Alan’s aim in this talk is to create a dialogue through which anyone can critically and practically reason about issues. Then practical reasonableness becomes a philosophical tool that can be used to analyse any issue.

During this weird dark patch in humanity’s
history ‘hands’ have become protagonists. We
hear over and over again phrases like: ‘wash
your hands properly’, ‘use a hand rub’, ‘do not
shake hands’, ‘give a helping hand to those
who are vulnerable amongst us’ and so on and
so forth.

There is what I would call a lingering problem in theoretical physics. This problem boils down to the unification of the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. The resolution for this issue would then be called a theory of everything. Physicists have a favourite candidate for such a theory, string theory, which calls for what Thomas Kuhn would have called a paradigm shift. A problem created on one level cannot be solved on that same level. In Maltese politics there is a parallel issue of unification in the realm of the common good.

There appears to be a discreet throng of right leaning individuals across this island, that may be, willy-nilly, deciding its fate. I call this legion the silent right. I am a centrist, constantly, trying to reconcile my free spirit with my traditional values. In so doing, I attempt to combine liberal ideals and policies with conservative stances. This means that someone like myself would have no issue at all seeing LGTBQI+ rights as a natural extension of the dignity of the human person, since we are all treasured members of this community, but for similar reasons would have an issue with the implementation of abortion. This is not a religious argument. Whilst religion does exercise an influence on politics, the two should be kept distinct from each other. A friend of mine once told me that the Maltese voter is essentially Labour. What he really meant is that the Maltese voter is more to the left. How can you not be to the left when our welfare State provides such an array of free services? Though he might be right, I still think that the Maltese voter ideology is not categorically leftist. It is conveniently leftist. In fact, it is also pragmatically right-wing. A self-fuelling paradox. The silent right may not always admit its inclination towards very conservative stances when interviewed in some survey. However, it would express it somehow on Election Day. The silent right is not symmetrically identical to the ultra-conservatives, the libertarians and the populists who are not so covert anymore. Indeed, they have formed their own political groupings: Imperium Europa, Patrijotti Maltin, Partit Popolari to mention a few. They are, as well, relatively unobtrusive. In general, as Scruton puts it, conservatives are less vociferous than the liberal left. The left is great at conveying its message. However, the silent right is strewn across all major political groupings. We also find it in that movement that should be leftist par excellence-the PL. The PN mirrors this situation, since there are some very enthusiastic liberals within the ranks of this traditionally conservative party. Furthermore, beguilingly, Labour became its own nemesis. It grew into what previous Labour front-runners accused the PN of being. Labour became "the establishment". Labour misplaced the guiding enlightenment of the French revolution. Liberté has become an extreme form of go-as-you-wish Hobbesian state of nature; Égalité was transformed into "some are more equal than others" and Fraternité, was understood to mean fraternising with tycoons and/or criminals. This sleaze is not right (sewwa) but, abroad, it is definitely more typical of the capitalist right than of the left. The slogan "is-sewwa jirbaħ żgur" (what is right shall certainly prevail) is actually what we all aspire to, but it never comes spontaneously. Before is-sewwa prevails, people suffer. Actually, Daphne Caruana Galizia was slain for perpetuating that ideal. Fulfilling that cycle. As a Hegelian I am inclined to accept historical cycles and appreciate that synthesis provides a sort of via media, similar to that encouraged by Aristotle. So I see this shift to the right as somehow a natural, consequence or reaction, to some previous antithetical cycle. My Hegelian side also gives me hope that establishments will change through a cooperative transformation rather than a bloody revolution. Even though, one must reiterate, blood has been spilled in Malta. And yet we saw no dramatic vote swing happening. In spite of everything that has materialised, Labour still enjoys a comfortable lead. Make no mistake about this! There has been a revolt. A few villains were politically guillotined. That was historically pivotal. Nonetheless, this cycle is not over yet. There is still the legal reverberation that will eventually, end too. Shortly, those events will teleport us into the synthesis-cycle. This synthesis will then become the new thesis-cycle.

Books on political philosophy are rarely written in Maltese. The reasons can be numerous but the factual situation is that. This book is a kind of departure from that situation. It also seems that the way politics is being conducted in Malta, and one dares to say abroad, is also a bit pragmatic, more about customer satisfaction and less about principles. The book, while addressed to anyone interested in reading about political philosophy in general and the common good in particular, should be of interest, hopefully, to those who wish to think more deeply or more broadly on this subject. What comes to mind is a whole range of people, from university students who want to write on this topic to politicians who want an analytical collection on this concept that is so much mentioned and at the same time remains so mysterious. This book is not a handbook of what to think or do, but rather a suggestion of how to start a political dialogue at a level that is not one of confrontation but one of cooperation. With this principle as a conceptual backbone of the project led to the final division of the book into two main sections. The first section of the book analyses the interaction between political philosophy and the common good from the perspective of a selection of philosophers and movements. The second section focuses more on the conceptual aspects of the common good. This book was sent for publication in the midst of the COVID-19. The latter crisis has revealed the need for political and economic change. Such a small virus has brought the governments of large countries to their knees and shattered economies around the world. PN and PL must transform themselves in order to survive. Moreover, in order for politics to change people must be more conversant with politics. Xuereb proposes philosopher-citizens instead of philosopher kings. Better politically educated people may make better electoral choices. He illustrates the planetary dimension of the concept of the common good and how it also applies to a small place like Malta.  The main message is that we must think not only locally, but we must think and act regionally and even globally for the common good of humanity. In conclusion, the common good translates into the coordination of the individual and the collective good. Eudemonia - the good life of the individual and that of the community are achieved through balance and participation in basic human values.