The Stellenbosch Socratic Journal

The strategic role white victimhood narratives play in maintaining white supremacy

2025-11-25T08:08:39+00:00

Since early 2025 the Trump administration has granted Afrikaners refugee status and resettlement in the US. At the same time the administration cracked down on most other types of immigration towards the US and has halted refugee admissions. This article argues that white anxiety and victimhood narratives are employed by far-right political actors, Trump, and Afrikaner organisations such as AfriForum and Solidariteit to maintain an infallibility of whiteness and subsequently white supremacy. Charles Mills's work on white supremacy is used to argue that the idea of the white victim in contemporary politics is crucial for securing whiteness as the norm and the privileged position of white people in society. Further, this article illustrates how white victimhood narratives are crucial for protecting white supremacy and that this is the primary reason Afrikaners have been awarded refugee status in the US.

Feminism (Also) for Men

2025-11-25T08:06:59+00:00

This article aims to demonstrate how men who feel confused and irrelevant in feminism classes can engage with feminism on two levels: listening to the voices of women, but also seeing feminism as an opportunity to supplement their own (male) perspectives. It discusses Adriana Cavarero’s In Spite of Plato, and points out that she emphasises its relevance for women much stronger than its relevance for men – almost to the point where the latter is completely eclipsed. Cavarero criticises the Western philosophical tradition originating with Plato as propagating a genderised soul–body hierarchy, in which the male = the soul, the female = the body, and the former is centralised while the latter is merely defined in terms of its deviation from the former. She proceeds to reread (marginalised) female characters from male-produced texts in order to carve out space for an embodied female subjectivity. While she discusses embodied wisdom with regards to Penelope (Odysseus’s wife in *The Odyssey*) and thereby women more generally, she does not emphasise the value of embodiment for men. This article emphasises that the bod(il)y can supplement male subjectivity too and can lead towards a more complete philosophical approach: the abstract intellectualism of the tradition Cavarero criticises is impoverished and cannot satisfactorily address an everyday, situated question such as "How should I live?". Hopefully this will make some of those men in feminism classes feel less confused and irrelevant.

Science Fiction as a Guide for AI, Personhood, and Moral Consideration

2025-11-25T08:04:40+00:00

Science fiction has long been a source of provocative speculation that has influenced our conceptions of both the present and future. It can thus be argued that both science fiction and philosophy are united in a search for understanding, even though they may go about this search quite differently. This article explores some possible contributions of science fiction to moral philosophy, specifically regarding the question of moral consideration. Particular focus is given to the issue of Artificial Intelligence and personhood, and a number of case studies are used in this investigation. Isaac Asimov's Laws of Robotics and the short story Cal (1995), as well as the Black Mirror episodes "White Christmas" (2014) and "Be Right Back" (2013) are used to explore some science fiction narratives relevant to moral philosophy. In this exploration, the importance and relevance of science fiction to society, not only as a source of entertainment but also as having philosophical relevance, is highlighted. This article concludes that science fiction ought to be taken seriously and consulted as a guide for navigating AI, personhood, and moral consideration in the near future, given its unique capacity to explore such issues.

From Deficiency to Difference

2025-11-25T08:02:33+00:00

Throughout the history of Autism research, Autistic lived experiences have been pathologised — seen as lacking in the fundamental structures which shape human lived experience. Only recently, with the rise of the neurodiversity movement to mainstream prominence, has a critical lens been taken to Autism research. This paper argues that classical phenomenology is an inadequate framework for understanding the subjective lived experiences of Autistic individuals. While classical phenomenology provides methodological foundations for understanding subjective lived experiences, it often overlooks the social structures that shape certain lived realities. Thus, I will contend that a critical phenomenological lens must be applied to future Autism research for the Autistic lived experience to be accurately and justly understood as a facet of diverse human existence rather than a demonstration of existential lack. Drawing on the arguments of Davis (2020), Guenther (2020), and Gordon (2020), I will distinguish critical phenomenology from classical phenomenology, exploring how it intentionally addresses the gaps in the classical framework. These arguments demonstrate how classical phenomenology's universalist assumptions fail to capture Autistic lived experiences across multiple domains — from alternative temporal structures and attention patterns to different sensory processing and meaning-making capacities — reducing neurological diversity to pathological deficiency. Ultimately, this paper will argue that critical phenomenology is essential for future Autism research to acknowledge human diversity, abandon pathologising approaches, and centre Autistic subjectivity.

Temporal Finitude, Embodied Perception and Ethical Call

2025-11-25T08:00:02+00:00

Phenomenology has consistently concerned itself with the encounter with "the Other" and the implications of this encounter for the self, yet some of the principal expounders of Phenomenology differ significantly in their views. For Martin Heidegger (1962), it serves as a catalyst for the confrontation with the finitude of the self, as defined by one's own temporal and spatial limitations enforced by one's mortality. Maurice Merleau-Ponty (2012) moves from this abstract ontological engagement towards a theory centred on the physicality of the perception of and interaction between physical bodies. Emmanuel Levinas (1969) further shifts towards an ethical perspective, which views the encounter with "the Other" not as a catalyst towards authenticity or as a co-creator of meaning, but as a fulcrum by which the self is leveraged beyond its limitations in order to respond to the ethical responsibility it has towards the vulnerability of "the Other". Despite their differences, each of these philosophers offer a valuable contribution towards the understanding of what it means to encounter another being, yet there is want for a synthesis of these contributions. This article aims to compare these differing perspectives to demonstrate the multifaceted nature of the encounter with "the Other", and thus highlight the necessity of understanding each philosopher's perspective in conjunction, rather than in conflict, with each other. This article concludes that a comprehensive attempt at a synthesis is both possible and worth revisiting.

From Decolonising Sexual Violence Discourse to Investigating Primate Coexistence

2025-11-25T07:57:08+00:00

In 2021, Louise du Toit became the first woman in the Department of Philosophy at Stellenbosch University to be promoted to full professor, giving her inaugural lecture in August 2025. In this interview, Paul Joubert asks Du Toit to recount her intellectual journey to this point, reflecting on the gendered dynamics of philosophy as a discipline, and the challenges of establishing an authoritative voice in a largely male-dominated field. The conversation explores Du Toit's work on sexual violence, discussing the catalyst of her philosophical investigation into rape and the intersections of sexual violence with colonial–racist politics and with the struggle for decolonisation. Du Toit discusses the complex legacies of colonial constructions of Black sexuality, the challenges of addressing sexual violence without reproducing racist harms, and the institutional racism and misogyny that continue to shape the treatment of Black victims. The interview concludes with a discussion of her current projects, including her research on primate (human–baboon) co-existence.

Foreword

2025-11-25T07:54:16+00:00

Death

2025-11-18T14:24:14+00:00

At one time or another every human being will be troubled by death. One may be troubled by the idea of death, or one may be troubled by what death is. Under the idea of death, I include the prospect of death for people one cares about and for oneself; but being troubled by what death is, is to be troubled by the nature or the realisation of death, which is to say what death (being dead) entails for the subject. Of course, those are not two definitively separate concerns. I am interested in something Lucretius is famous for saying about death, that it should not in fact trouble us, and that it only troubles us because we misunderstand something about the nature of death; we think that nonexistence could be bad for us, hence we are right to fear it: all this, says Lucretius, is a mistake arising from misunderstanding death. In this paper I argue that Lucretius is wrong in saying that we should not be troubled by death because (1) the very thing he thinks is irrational to fear is rational to fear, and (2) his argument is self-defeating. In short, (1) annihilation, or the absence of the subject’s point of view anywhere, is a reasonable thing to fear; (2) Lucretius erroneously relies on a conflation of the stateless nature of annihilation with the present experienceable nature of the human being to sustain his conclusion. I conclude that, qua Lucretius’s argument, it is the very loss of the possibility of having possibilities, which fact is entailed simply by being alive, that humans fear, and are quite rational to fear.

Restricted freedoms of menstruating women

2025-11-18T14:22:10+00:00

Period poverty can generally be defined as a lack of access to or an inability to acquire, access, and perform menstrual health products, facilities, and practices. It is estimated that around 500 million women worldwide live in period poverty. This is a phenomenon which can incapacitate women from performing basic functions and from participating fully in society. In this paper, I will use the Capability Approach developed by Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen to show conclusively that period poverty poses a real restriction to the freedoms of menstruating women and girls. Under the Capability Approach, well-being is measured by the real ability of an individual to have certain capabilities. Specifically, period poverty restricts freedoms by having an adverse effect on education, health, and social functioning. While many of these women and girls have the formal abilities or rights to the restricted spheres, period poverty acts as a hidden barrier to successfully acquiring the capabilities of being educated, being healthy, and being social.

In the shadow of performance and repression

2025-11-18T14:20:40+00:00

This paper explores the phenomenon of overparenting by analysing behaviours associated with overparenting, such as obsessing over a child’s achievements or weight, using Marcuse’s notions of surplus repression and the performance principle. The literature on the micromanagement of children reveals a pattern, and motivations of overparenting, that can be understood in light of the Freudian concepts of repression and identity. By taking a closer look at the micromanagement of childhoods, parents can be interpreted as producers of surplus repression that concentrate the pressures of capitalism on their child. This paper proposes the term ‘surplus-parenting’ as a micro manifestation of surplus repression on a societal level as discussed by Marcuse. By using the term surplus-parenting, the author is able to articulate the consequences of surplus repression in the lives of the children and parents on this micro and macro scale. By questioning the motivations of overparenting, the concepts of the performance principle and surplus repression can be seen as manifesting in the parent-child identity.

What’s desert got to do with it?

2025-11-18T14:18:51+00:00

In this paper, I argue that the belief in free will and basic desert is not necessary to participate in our various responsibility practices. I discuss various concepts related to our responsibility practices, including attributability, answerability, and accountability responsibility, showing how they can be practically understood and grounded in both backwards-looking and forward-looking responsibility practices. By doing so, I show that holding people morally responsible can be justified without referencing classic free will or basic desert. Therefore, I propose that, when it comes to our moral and responsibility practices, we do not need to believe in and can discard our classical understanding of free will and embrace a minimalist pragmatic freedom.

A labour rights-based critique of Nozick’s entitlement theory

2025-11-18T14:17:03+00:00

Robert Nozick’s libertarian theory of justice as entitlement proposes that any transfer of private property, including one’s skills, based on voluntary consent is legitimate. Applied to the labour context, Nozick contends that labour agreements free from direct coercion are just and should be unregulated to preserve autonomy and liberty, regardless of potential exploitation. This paper argues that Nozick’s understanding of consent neglects the lived realities and socioeconomic inequalities that are evident in, for example, employment in the mica mining industry in India, and thus fails to address the unjust exploitation of workers. Mica mining is characterised by hazardous working conditions, child exploitation, and poor compensation rooted in socioeconomic desperation. This paper aims to highlight the necessity-driven, rather than consensual, participation of vulnerable members of society. Through a detailed analysis of Nozick’s libertarian principles and their application to labour in a case study of mica mining, this paper demonstrates that the overemphasis on consent and minimal state intervention integral to this theory fails to protect those most vulnerable. This critique uncovers the limitations of Nozick’s theory in addressing socioeconomic injustices and emphasises the need for a more comprehensive approach that considers social context and workers’ rights. The conclusion of this paper is that Nozick’s entitlement theory is incapable of achieving substantive justice in the context of labour rights.

On slow reading and slow violence

2025-11-18T14:14:47+00:00

Could reading about nature in a different way aid us in recognising and addressing the damage humans are doing to it? In this paper, I argue that Michelle Boulous Walker’s theory of slow reading can help us recognise and address climate change, radiological violence, deforestation, and other slow violences done to nature. Reading slowly, and taking one’s time to dwell is an open, understanding, and embodied concept, one that values returning, again and again, to uncover anew the wisdom that lies within a text. Slow violence, conceptualised by Rob Nixon, is a pervasive and seemingly uneventful violence, where its effects are temporally and spatially removed from its cause. With slowness being a common factor between these concepts, I argue that one must first slow down to recognise slow violence. I will defend this view by discussing three aspects of slow reading and analysing how those three aspects connect to slow violence and aid in recognising and addressing slow violence. These three aspects of slow reading are openness, understanding, and embodiment. Through these aspects, slow reading not only aids in recognising slow violence, but it also aids in holding space for the other, therefore holding a twofold approach; both recognising and addressing slow violence.

Foreword

2025-11-18T14:12:40+00:00

Death

2025-11-18T13:54:29+00:00

This paper considers the phenomenon of death as it is existentially relevant to us as existents. It raises the question: how should we live given that one day we will die? I explore how death uniquely shapes our conception of who we are and what we can become as naturally constrained human beings. I argue that we should seek to incorporate death as a meaningful consideration and factor in our daily living if we are to self-actualise. Furthermore, I argue that given the above we find ourselves in need of consolation. I proffer a proto-ontological aesthetics that seeks to show from the first principle of the I-You ontological structure of human existence how we can find consolation in a world besieged by death. I argue that there is a reciprocal relation between being-with-others, death, and self-actualisation. We appreciate being-with-others all the more because of the limitation imposed by death, whilst being-with-others allows us to find consolation in the other in the form of being-with-others-to-the-end. The second part of the essay considers the relationship between being-with-others, death and self-actualisation as applied to aesthetics. A number of aesthetic examples are employed that exemplify the reciprocal nature between death, love, and art. Art helps us to discover and integrate ourselves as a being-with-others: it helps us to form meaningful relationships. Thus, art as a mode of being-with-others provides a way for us to reconcile with death, while the finitude imposed by death moves
us to find consolation in art.

Considering the possibility of African philosophical counselling rooted in African hermeneutics and conversationalism

2025-11-18T13:52:49+00:00

Contemporary philosophical counselling literature is undergoing continuous expansion through the introduction of new and established philosophical traditions. However, certain traditions remain inadequately represented in the existing literature, most notably African philosophy. This current deficiency, if adequately acknowledged, presents
an immensely creative opportunity for the expansion of philosophical counselling. Drawing on the hermeneutical work of Tsenay Serequeberhan and conversational philosophy as offered by Jonathan Chimakonam, I propose to introduce a notion of African philosophy that roots itself in the horizon (philosophical place) of philosophical counsellors enmeshed in dynamic conversations with counselees also rooted in and speaking from a specific horizon. Various contemporary philosophical counselling practises fail to grasp the importance of the very rootedness and origins of these philosophisings, subsequently failing to foster an environment conducive to the creation of new concepts and ways of becoming. Philosophical counselling underpinned and informed by this understanding of African philosophy emphasises the collaborative nature of the interpretative endeavour that originates from and is rooted in the concrete lifeworld of a counselee.

Deceiving Someone into Having Sex

2025-11-18T13:50:55+00:00

This paper aims to provide an in-depth examination of the fundamental elements of rape, specifically focusing on intention and consent, within the context of “deceiving someone into having sex”. The analysis will involve exploring model cases and scrutinising the intentions of both the deceiver and the deceived in relation to consent. Through conceptual analysis, the concept of “deceiving someone into having sex” will be clarified, drawing insights from typical applications of this concept. Additionally, this paper will critically evaluate the main arguments against these conceptualisations of “deceiving someone into having sex”. This is done to demonstrate the flaws that undermine these arguments, thus highlighting the insufficiency of these approaches in fully discrediting the concept. Moreover, it will be argued that deceiving someone into having sex can be regarded as a form of coercion, and thus rape, aligning with the established criteria for identifying rape cases. In conclusion, this paper argues that the conception of “deceiving someone into having sex” as a form of rape challenges the narrow framework through which we traditionally understand rape, necessitating the recognition that the scope of the concept of rape extends beyond our previous limits.

Unfree and Unequal

2025-11-18T13:49:32+00:00

In The Force of Nonviolence (2020), Judith Butler introduces the notions of “violence”, “nonviolence”, “grievability”, and “vulnerability”. In this paper, Butler’s four notions will be applied to explain how homelessness is a kind of violence that renders certain lives more grievable than others. Unequal grievability means that if the life of a homeless person were to be lost, it would not be recognised as a loss at all. Jeremy Waldron’s Homelessness and the Issue of Freedom (1991) is instrumental in illustrating the ungrievability of homeless persons by focusing on his distinction between private and collective property. Addressing this violence of homelessness requires nonviolent action such as banning anti-homeless architecture and working within institutional structures to create a radically egalitarian grievable environment.

I Wan’na Be Like You-ou-ou

2025-11-18T13:47:29+00:00

Contemporary society is undeniably marred by the routine violence which it exacts upon animals. For post-structuralist thinkers, this violence begins with the anthropocentrism of human language. This paper thus follows the post-structuralist work of Jacques Derrida, specifically his strategy of deconstruction, in order to disrupt the anthropogenic violence continually inflicted upon animal beings. In so doing, this paper aims to contribute to the ongoing destabilisation of the anthropocentric human(animal) hierarchy by tracing the deconstruction of anthropocentrism in Disney’s The Jungle Book (1967). Accordingly, I draw on Derrida’s strategy of deconstruction to show how the ostensibly stable human(animal) hierarchy is underwritten by anthropocentrism which is always already contingently established and prone to reversal – and hence, open to its own displacement as a matter of ethico-political urgency. Ultimately, it is shown that The Jungle Book, upon its deconstruction, does not merely reconfigure the human-animal relationship, but renders the very term ‘animal’ nonsensical.

An Examination of the Necessary Adjective

2025-11-18T13:45:11+00:00

This paper engages in the decolonisation of African philosophy through a critical examination of necessary adjectives and their implications on global philosophy. I contend that decolonising African philosophy necessitates a transformative process that challenges the dominance of "Western" philosophy and dismantles the power dynamics perpetuated by necessary adjectives. By recognising the inherent problems within the discipline, engaging with diverse perspectives, and de-emphasising restrictive borders, philosophy can evolve into a more inclusive, equitable, and globally interconnected field of knowledge. By exploring discrepancies in usage of necessary adjectives between ‘Western’ and ‘non-Western’ philosophies, I uncover underlying assumptions and systemic devaluations inherent in these linguistic constructs. I argue that necessary adjectives are rooted in colonial logic which perpetuates racial hierarchies and systematically marginalises ‘non-Western’ philosophies. Necessary adjectives construct a binary framework in which Western philosophy is presented as normative and universal, whilst othered philosophies are relegated to the margins, requiring Western validation. This restricts diversity of thought and limits the scope of global philosophical discourse. Thus, in order to decolonise African philosophy, I argue for deeper engagement with the problematic nature of necessary adjectives. I advocate for the deconstruction of the Western perspective and its underpinnings in
white supremacy, whilst emphasising the contextual situatedness of philosophies. By problematising “Western” philosophy, acknowledging its arbitrary nature, exclusionary practices, and its rewriting of history, I suggest a path towards decolonisation that encompasses inclusion of marginalised voices and a reimagining of both philosophy education in Africa, and of the borders between philosophies.

Foreword

2025-11-18T13:42:24+00:00

Art as a Realisation of Deconstruction

2025-11-18T13:35:38+00:00

Digital platforms have revitalised the right-wing argument that modern art not only lacks technical excellence but also contributes to the moral degeneration of society. In response to the purported immorality of modern art the right has exalted the virtues of classical Western art. Although this problematic position has been attacked from multiple academic angles, the technique of deconstruction is perhaps best suited to pull apart the faulty logic underpinning this argument. The aim of the following text is to employ the mechanism of deconstruction to prove that neither modern nor classical art can claim supremacy over the other. PragerU’s short five-minute videos are emblematic of the right’s ongoing attempt to increase the popularity of their positions through online engagement. Accordingly, the specific cultural text this essay will deconstruct is a PragerU video presented by Robert Florczak discussing his views on the state of modern art, entitled ‘Why is Modern Art so Bad?” (2014). The deconstruction concludes that since the value of an artwork is derived from the personal experiences of both its creator and audience, Florczak’s attempt to constrain the elements of artistic expression within an arbitrary hierarchy is not only immoral but damaging to the institution of art as whole.

The problem as point of departure

2025-11-18T13:32:28+00:00

Philosophical counselling is generally understood as a movement in practical philosophy that helps counselees, i.e. clients, resolve everyday problems with the help of philosophy. Moving outside of the scope of what philosophy can do, however, is a problem. More specifically, when the philosophical counsellor moves outside of the so-called realm of philosophy into the realm of psychotherapy, i.e. medical framework, problem resolution and ameliorative goals might be on the table. This plays into the hands of critics who state that philosophical counselling is encroaching on the terrain of the mental health professions without, inter alia, the proper evidence of its treatment efficacy. This paper is an attempt to keep the philosophical counsellor in the realm of philosophy, and by doing this to keep them busy with philosophising as such, i.e. philosophising as an end in itself. In particular, the article focuses on a novel interpretation of how to approach the counselee’s problem so that the philosophical counsellor does not fall prey to problem resolving and ameliorative endeavours. To substantiate this novel reinterpretation to the counselee’s problem, I turn to the notions of the Pyrrhonian aporia and the Derridean perhaps, in conjunction with a crucial position exclusively available to the counselee in philosophical counselling.

The Subjectivity of Sex(ual Inclusion)

2025-11-18T13:28:49+00:00

The term ‘sexual inclusion’ is commonly taken to refer to the adjustment of our social and educational practices to counteract prejudices that are connected to sex. The project of sexual inclusion can be used, for example, to advocate against the discrimination of the LGBTQIA+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, intersex, asexual, ally and others) community or certain unconventional BDSM (bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, sadism, and masochism) dynamics and activities. This essay, however, takes sexual inclusion as the project that promotes the equal and largely indiscriminatory opportunity for each person to engage in meaningful and pleasurable nonmorally good sexual experiences, because, as I will argue, sex is part of what it means to live a flourishing and good human life. This essay focuses specifically on nonmorally good sex, how we experience it, and its fundamental role in promoting sexual inclusion – if one does not experience nonmorally good sex, one cannot feel or be considered as being sexually included. To have a better grasp on the project of sexual inclusion and what it is, I discuss the different mechanisms that
can lead to sexual exclusion and how experiencing sexual exclusion can hinder our progress towards living a good and flourishing life. I conclude that due to its subjective nature, the experience of nonmorally good sex itself challenges and limits us in our pursuit of the advancement and achievement of sexual inclusion. Engaging in a sexual activity with another person due to the motivating reasons to provide that person with a nonmorally good sexual experience (with the goal of advancing their sexual inclusion), is not an input-output kind of process. If we are unable to guarantee nonmorally good sex for others, the result is that we cannot guarantee their sexual inclusion either.

Knowing Good, Doing Bad

2025-11-18T13:25:11+00:00

Aristotle developed the notion of akrasia in his Nicomachean Ethics. Akrasia describes situations where people know that their actions will be unethical; nevertheless, they continue to do those actions. This paper discusses how akrasia is a helpful means of understanding human behaviour in the wake of the environmental crisis. People know that their behaviours are environmentally damaging; nonetheless, they continue to engage in those behaviours. This makes these environmentally damaging behaviours more akin to weaknesses of will than epistemic failures. Understanding human behaviours towards the environment as akratic is useful because Aristotle’s solutions to akratic behaviour can become tools to combating environmental destruction.

"Calm Down, You'll Make it Worse"

2025-11-18T13:21:22+00:00

Martha Nussbaum’s account of anger follows on neatly from the work of her liberal Western forebears. In her view, anger has neither intrinsic nor instrumental value. Anger is both normatively problematic, and counter-productive, in that it succeeds only in exacerbating injustices rather than solving them. One exception to this negative account is what she calls “Transition-Anger”, a species of anger more akin to compassionate hope that aims for positive change and amelioration. Individuals, says Nussbaum, should try to move to Transition-Anger as quickly as possible when they feel angry. Amia Srinivasan presents a striking counterargument to the traditional Western view of anger. She points out that the counterproductivity criticism gives rise to a type of affective injustice in that requiring an individual to not get aptly angry in the
face of injustice out of fear of the consequences is a double injustice. In this paper, I criticise Nussbaum’s Transition-Anger by showing that it is a paradigmatic case of the affective injustice to which Srinivasan refers.

Foreword

2025-11-18T13:17:55+00:00

Foreword

2025-11-18T12:48:15+00:00

Practising "dissentient philosophical counselling" underpinned by African conversationalism and Pyrrhonian scepticism

2025-11-18T12:41:01+00:00

Method in philosophical counselling is still a contentious topic. That is, there is no consensus on whether the philosophical counsellor should have a method in her practice to help the counsellee resolve philosophical problems. Some philosophical counsellors claim that there should not be any rigid adherence to method(s) as this will render philosophy too dogmatic. Philosophical counselling, in light of this view, promotes a kind of mutual philosophising sans definite goal with the counsellee. What I call "dissentient philosophical counselling" takes this claim even further: the philosophical counsellor lives/practices her philosophical counselling, that is, she embodies and practices philosophy as a way of life. This view is posed as a response to contemporary conceptualisations of philosophical counselling where the philosophical counsellor might stand in a disembodied relationship with her method(s) and tries to have a conversation "from nowhere". Dissentient philosophical counselling, even though more focused on living philosophically, still suffers from certain shortcomings. In this paper, I firstly showcase how even the seemingly innocuous but important question "How might one live?" suffers from a lack of much needed nuance. And secondly, I introduce, via a fictional narrative, a provisional way of practicing this reworked dissentient philosophical counselling. I do this by, firstly, introducing African conversational philosophy, via its method of conversationalism, and secondly, I introduce a peculiar version of Pyrrhonian scepticism especially regarding the notion of bios adoxastōs (life without dogma).

Butler on Wittig

2025-11-18T12:34:04+00:00

Judith Butler and Monique Wittig are two feminist philosophers with many similarities but also crucial differences. Wittig's starting point is the materiality of language where she posits that language has a dual function. It can affirm absolute reciprocity and equality among all speaking subjects in Being, but it can also institute artificial differences such as gender and sex. For Wittig, sex is a political category that establishes heterosexual society not in a binary way but in a way that particularises women as "the sex" while men are universal subjects in Being. Wittig calls for emancipation through a two-pronged lesbian revolution to obliterate sexual difference. Although Butler agrees with Wittig on the materiality of language, the political nature of sex, and that there is no natural category of "women", they critique and differ from Wittig on two fundamental bases. The first is that Wittig uncritically invokes the metaphysics of substance with the concepts of Being and the subject despite it being the basis of the heterosexual matrix. The second is Wittig's emancipation strategy of revolution over Butler's strategy of redeployment. This paper will discuss Wittig, Butler's critique of Wittig to articulate their own theory of gender performativity, and the more primary point that Butler does not argue for full-scale revolution. Rather, their emancipation strategy from heterosexual society is more radical as it aims to trouble all identities, and the notion of identity itself to make space for the legitimacy and recognition of "impossible" identities.

Justice as Fairness in South Africa?

2025-11-18T12:28:44+00:00

John Rawls's moral theory aims to achieve a form of distributive justice that is founded upon fairness. In this paper, the criteria and principles, as presented by Rawls in his theory of justice as fairness, are applied to the enactment of the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act (BBBEE) in an effort to evaluate whether it satisfies his stipulated conditions. The Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act of 2003 was introduced in South Africa as a means to further mitigate the structural patterns of disadvantage that disproportionally affect the black majority of the population in the wake of Apartheid.

Justice as fairness is initially theoretically conceptualised and contextualised through an explanation of its main elements and thought experiments; namely, those of the basic structure of society, the Original Position and the Veil of Ignorance, as well as the principles of justice. In this paper, the practical application of this theory of distributive justice is facilitated through the use of the BBBEE Act in an effort to establish whether the act achieves the kind of justice as fairness that Rawls envisions. This analysis is facilitated through a qualitative comparison of the successes and alignments, as well as the failures and divergences of the policy to the theory itself. The outcome of the analysis suggests that the BBBEE policy satisfies some of the Rawlsian criteria for justice as fairness initially, but ultimately fails in practice.

Game

2025-11-18T12:20:54+00:00

In this paper, I discuss two uses of the concept GAME in relation to the repression of desire. The first use refers to the common use of the term: board games, sports and riddles, while the second refers to sexual prowess. Following Herbert Marcuse's concepts of surplus repression and the performance principle, I argue that the supposed liberation of desire in an advanced capitalist society transfigures desire into another consumable product under rational control. Such desire further alienates us from one another since relationships become a constant game of manipulation in which we seek to suppress, produce and negotiate desire. In a series of interludes, I then imagine societies with alternative expressions of desire. In doing so, I seek to describe as well as to perform a world free from excessive rationality. However, under academic strain, this project faces monumental inclinations to justify and explain what would otherwise be an honest form of playing. In the spirit of critical social theory, I sketch the reality of a game-driven society yet locate transformative potential in our radical intersubjectivity.

Fetus Feuds

2025-11-18T12:10:18+00:00

Judith Jarvis Thomson's article, A Defense of Abortion, covers a deeply debated subject in moral philosophy due to its controversial and powerful stance in favour of the right to have an abortion. In this paper, I critique her work and in so doing, aim to affirm her position that abortion is morally permissible. I analyse the hypothetical scenarios Thomson uses for her position which include The Violinist, The Engulfing Baby, The Jacket, and The Burglar. Upon close inspection, the core argument of each of these analogies proves that the right to make decisions about one's body and the right to self-defence are stronger than that of the fetus's use of one's body. As will be discussed, her paper does not go without criticism. John Finnis argues that the fetus has ownership rights which should not be violated through abortion. However, his argument is weakened, because it cannot be applied when a pregnancy is life threatening. This would violate the mother's ownership rights. I will contend that Thomson's "right to autonomy" argument, in favour of the right to abort, is more pertinent than Finnis' claim, because it can be applied to all situations. Another well-known point of discussion, proposed as the dilemma of "actively killing" or "allowing to die" by Philippa Foot, will also be examined. In this paper, I contend that Foot's concern is less relevant than Thomson's, given that aborting would be followed by an already available sequence of events that does not impact the overall moral right to autonomy. With these convincing critiques, I conclude that Foot's dilemma dissipates, and we are left with the argument that Thomson's right to autonomy in favour of the moral permissibility of abortion prevails.

Violent Rationality

2025-11-18T12:01:18+00:00

Amidst the seemingly rapidly increasing international prevalence of police violence against black people, many have begun questioning the institution of policing and the rationale behind its existence. This public consciousness of police violence might be a new development in recent history, but many scholars have investigated policing and racism through the lens of a critical theory of race. This paper will analyse the mode of rationality supporting police violence among the perpetrators, identifying it as instrumental reason as described by Horkheimer and Adorno. The concept of instrumental reason will be discussed in the context of the Frankfurt School, after which police violence will be described in general, and connections between the theory and real-world examples will be drawn. The theoretical analysis will be used to attempt to provide insight into the function of police rationality. It will be shown, using the theoretical tools from the theory of instrumental reason, the manner in which the institution of policing utilises instrumental reason in order to subjugate humans — particularly black people — to an inscrutable end.

Non-Consensuality Pathologised

2025-11-18T11:40:19+00:00

The fifth text-revised iteration of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR) defines paraphilia as "any intense and persistent sexual interest other than sexual interest in genital stimulation or preparatory fondling with phenotypically normal, physically mature, consenting human partners". Paraphilic disorders specifically denote a paraphilia that is "currently causing distress or impairment to the individual or a paraphilia whose satisfaction has entailed personal harm, or risk of harm, to others". A diagnosis of paraphilic disorder either demands the personal distress and/or impairment of function that is caused by the atypical sexual urges and fantasies to be present, or the status of non-consent of the other person that these sexual fantasies and urges are directed towards when acted upon by the patient. This paper discusses how consent not only becomes the standard for permissible and legal sexual activity with other persons, but also, when the diagnostic criteria are taken at face-value, for sexual pathology in the DSM-5-TR when the patient acts on their sexual urges. After a close investigation of various possible interpretations of the element of non-consensuality in the diagnostic criteria for paraphilic disorders, this paper concludes that the DSM-5-TR does not offer a clarifying explanation on how mental health professionals should understand its approach to diagnosing paraphilic disorders, leaving us with an ambiguous, unclear and unsettled conceptualisation of what it would mean to fulfil its diagnostic criteria.

To jettison the mind

2025-11-12T18:34:50+00:00

Ever since Descartes first introduced it, the mind–body problem has been the subject of much philosophical debate. I believe, however, that the key concept upon which these arguments hinge, the mind, is a nonsensical term. In this paper, I argue that the mind cannot be conceived of understandably, and that when we speak of the mind, we do not in fact know of what we speak. I begin with a brief description of the origin of the mind in Cartesian dualism, as well as an explanation of the two main opposing sides of the mind–body debate: physicalism and dualism. Thereafter, I explain my argument (inspired by AJ Ayer) as the Inconceivability Argument, which states that the mind is not conceivable in a way that makes an understandable difference in the world, and that we thus do not truly understand the mind. After addressing several potential objections, I explain the consequences that the Inconceivability Argument hold for dualism and physicalism. I conclude that dualism no longer has a place in debates about consciousness and that physicalism must narrow its definition so that it only includes measurable cognitive processes, but not subjective experience. If we wish to understand what we speak, write, and argue about, then it is necessary to jettison the concept of the mind.