Papers by Sari Roman-Lagerspetz
… Valtiotieteellisen yhdistyksen julkaisu …, 2005
Handbuch Anerkennung, 2019
Handbuch Anerkennung, 2021
Springer Reference Geisteswissenschaften, Nov 20, 2019
Handbuch Anerkennung, 2021
"Pensar publicament el contrari dels altres" es un dels fonaments de la democracia. La ... more "Pensar publicament el contrari dels altres" es un dels fonaments de la democracia. La tasca de l'oposicio en un sistema democratic es la d'expressar la desconfianca, de criticar les accions del govern i d'oferir una alternativa. L'oposicio institucionalitza la desconfianca, i, paradoxalment, la presencia d'aquesta desconfianca institucionalitzada es, per als ciutadans, una rao important per confiar en el sistema democratic. L’autor defensa que la relacio entre el govern i l'oposicio pot ser entesa en termes de dialectica hegeliana. Tot i que la teoria politica de Hegel formulada en la seva Filosofia del Dret destaca el paper unificador de l'Estat, la seva filosofia anterior conte un major potencial democratic.
Nordic Studies in Education, 2011
Nordicum-Mediterraneum, 2012
Category: Conference paper Written by Sari Roman-Lagerspetz "Thinking publicly otherwise" is one ... more Category: Conference paper Written by Sari Roman-Lagerspetz "Thinking publicly otherwise" is one of the foundations of democracy. The task of the opposition in a democratic system is to express distrust, to criticize the actions of the government and to provide an alternative. The opposition institutionalizes distrust, and, paradoxically, the presence of this institutionalized distrust is, for the citizens, one important reason to trust the democratic system. The claim defended here is that the relationship between the government and the opposition can be understood in terms of Hegel's dialectics. Although Hegel's political theory as formulated in his Philosophy of Right emphasizes the unifying role of the State, his earlier philosophy contains more democratic potential. Modern democracy cannot be conceived only in terms of political equality, mass participation, competition, or tolerance. Nor can it be defined as a system where the public good is determined through rational or ethical deliberation. All these are, at least in principle, possible even in autocratic or oligarchic systems. What is peculiar for modern democracy is that opposition and dissent are not only tolerated, but they are recognized as necessary aspects of the system. Governments need oppositions, because their right to govern is legitimized only through the presence of an opposition. The task of the opposition in a democratic system is to express distrust: to criticize the actions of the government and to provide an alternative. The opposition institutionalizes distrust, and, paradoxically, the presence of this institutionalized distrust is, for the citizens, one important reason to trust the democratic system. Insofar as the opposition is incompetent, or bribed or otherwise made toothless, the system appears as less democratic, and the democratic legitimacy of the government is consequently diminished. The idea that an organized or institutionalized distrust embodied in the opposition could ultimately be the basis of legitimacy is complex and even paradoxical. It is no wonder that the classical normative theories of democracy have not been able to conceptualize the role of opposition. The idea of democracy as the sovereignty of the People was born in the French Revolution. Typically it conceived the People as united and homogeneous. The Marxist and nationalist conceptions of democracy (for example, that of Carl Schmitt 1985; 2008) are direct descendants of this idea. Even when it was admitted that the "Will of the People" could, in practice, only mean the will of the majority, the unavoidable presence of a distrusting minority was conceived as a defect, a deviation from the pure ideal of democracy. The perfect democracy was, ideally, based on unanimity and a complete identity between the rulers and the ruled (see Rosanvallon 2006, ch 3.). There was no room for organized opposition in this conception. The liberal version of popular sovereignty presented in John Locke's Second Treatise (Locke 1988) was not based on the hypothetical identification of the rulers and the ruled. According to Locke, the government was based on trust. Trust was, unlike a contract or identity, an asymmetrical relationship. The people or the community could unilaterally withdraw its trust and replace the government by another. If the rulers refused to obey, the ruled had a right to resist the rulers, and if necessary, rise to arms. Nevertheless, trust was for Locke, the normal and Nordicum-Mediterraneum [nome.unak.
Acta Politica, 2009
This study analyses the Hegelian roots of the subject-theory and the political theory of Judith B... more This study analyses the Hegelian roots of the subject-theory and the political theory of Judith Butler. Butler can be seen as the author of the concept of gender performativity. Butler claims that identities are linquistic. Subject's identities are "terms". Linguistic identities are performative and normative: they produce, according to cultural rules, the identities which they just claim to describe. Butler's theory of the performativity of identities is based on her theory of identities as ek-static constructions. This means that there is a relation between the self and the Other at the heart of identities. It is claimed in this study that Butler's theory of the relation between the self and the Other, or, between the subject and the constitutive outside, is based on G.W.F.Hegel's theory of the dialectics of recognition in The Phenomenology of Spirit. Especially the sections dealing with the relation between "Lord" and "Bondsman" set the theoretical base for Butler's theory of the ek-statism of identities as well as for Butler's political theory. Further, it is claimed that Hegel's own solution for the enslaving and instrumentalizing relation between the self and the Other, reciprocal recognition, remains an important alternative to the postmodernist conception supported by political theorists like Butler. Chapter 2, on Hegel, goes through the dialectics of recognition between the self and the Other in The Phenomenology of Spirit up until the ideal of reciprocal recognition and absolute knowledge. Chapter 3 introduces two French interpretations of Hegel, by Alexandre Kojève and Louis Althusser. Both of these interpretations, especially the Kojèvian one, have deeply influenced the contemporary understanding of Hegel as well as the contemporary thought-presented e.g. in the postmodern political thought-on the relations between the self and the Other. The Kojèvian Marxist utopia with its notion of "the End of History" as well as the Althusserian theory of the interpellative formation of subjects have also influenced how Hegel's theory of the self and the Other have travelled into Butler's thought. In chapter 5 these influences are analysed in detail. According to the analysis, Butler, like numerous other poststructuralist theorists, accepts Kojève's interpretation as basically correct, but rejects his vision of "the End of History" as static and totalitarian. Kojève's utopian philosophy of history is replaced by the paradoxical idea of an endless striving towards emancipation which, however, could not and should not be reached. In Chapter 6 Butler's theory is linked to another postmodern political theory, that of Chantal Mouffe. It is argued that Mouffe's theory is based on a similar view of the relation of the self and the Other as Butler's theory. The former, however, deals explicitly with politics. Therefore, it makes the central paradox of striving for the impossible more visible; such a theory is unable to guide political action. Hegel actually anticipated this kind of theorizing in his critique of "Unhappy Consciousness" in The Phenomenology of Spirit.
Tiede & edistys, 2011
Cassini's Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) observed both of Rhea's polar regions during a c... more Cassini's Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) observed both of Rhea's polar regions during a close (2,000 km) flyby on 9 th March 2013 during orbit 183. Rhea's southern pole was again observed during a more distant (51,000 km) flyby on 10 th February 2015 during orbit 212. The results show Rhea's southern winter pole is one of the coldest places directly observed in our solar system: surface temperatures of 25.4±7.4 K and 24.7±6.8 K are inferred from orbit 183 and 212 data respectively. The surface temperature of the northern summer pole inferred from orbit 183 data is warmer: 66.6±0.6 K. Assuming the surface thermophysical properties of the two polar regions are comparable then these temperatures can be considered a summer and winter seasonal temperature constraint for the polar region. Orbit 183 will provide solar longitude (L s) coverage at 133° and 313° for the summer and winter poles respectively, whilst orbit 212 provides an additional winter temperature constraint at L s 337°. Seasonal models with bolometric albedo values between 0.70 and 0.74 and thermal inertia values between 1 and 46 J m-2 K-1 s-1/2 (otherwise known as MKS units) can provide adequate fits to these temperature constraints (assuming the winter temperature is an upper limit). Both these albedo and thermal inertia values agree within the uncertainties with those previously observed on both Rhea's leading and trailing hemispheres. Investigating the seasonal temperature change of Rhea's surface is particularly important, as the seasonal wave is sensitive to deeper surface temperatures (~tens of centimeters to meter depths) than the more commonly reported diurnal wave (typically less than a centimeter), the exact depth difference dependent upon the assumed surface properties. For example, if a surface porosity of 0.5 and thermal inertia of 25 MKS is assumed then the depth of the seasonal thermal wave is 76 cm, which is much deeper than the ~0.5 cm probed by diurnal studies of Rhea (Howett et al., 2010). The low thermal inertia derived here implies that Rhea's polar surfaces are highly porous even at great depths. Analysis of a CIRS focal plane 1 (10 to 600 cm-1) stare observation, taken during the orbit 183 encounter between 16:22:33 and 16:23:26 UT centered on 71.7° W, 58.7° S provides the first analysis of a thermal emissivity spectrum on Rhea. The results show a flat emissivity spectrum with negligible emissivity features. A few possible explanations exist for this flat emissivity spectrum, but the most likely for Rhea is that the surface is both highly porous and composed of small particles (<~50 µm).
Studies in Social and Political Thought, 2015
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Papers by Sari Roman-Lagerspetz