Thomas Telios
Title
PD Dr.
Last Name
Telios
First name
Thomas
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thomas.telios@unisg.ch
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071 224 3532
45 results
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Item type:Publication, On the Ambivalences of Common Sense: Common Sense as Theoretical Framework, Political Longing, and Springboard for Political Practice. An Interview with Sophia RosenfeldType:journal articleJournal:Journal of Social and Political PhilosophyVolume:5Issue:1 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, IntroductionIn Eclipse of Reason (1947), Max Horkheimer provides a fundamental analysis of the ambivalences of the Western concept of reason and showcases paradigmatically what a dialectical understanding of reason could look like. Whereas reason cannot be abandoned altogether or declared obsolete, at the same time it manifests itself in forms that are difficult to qualify as promoting emancipation which initially was reason's primary promise. As Horkheimer concludes his study, 'if by enlightenment and intellectual progress we mean the freeing of man from superstitious belief in evil forces, in demons and fairies, in blind fatein short, the emancipation from fearthen denunciation of what is currently called reason is the greatest service we can render' (Horkheimer 1947: 126). The two prefaces to the English (1947) and German edition (1967) respectively are indicative of the interrelated goals to which Horkheimer aspires through his dialectical critique of reason. While the English preface underlines the theoretical gains, the German preface highlights the practical ramifications. What led Horkheimer to declare the need to denounce reason was its instrumentalisation under 'the weight of the overwhelming machinery of social power and that of the atomized masses' (ibid.: 126). The latter 'mutilates' reason and prevents it from its original route, i.e. a 'progress toward utopia' (ibid.: 126) where reasonand mutatis mutandis philosophy-'can function as a corrective of history' (ibid.: 126) through the recognition of the factors that distort it. This special issue 'Eclipse of Common Sense' proposes an analogous treatment of the concept of common sense. The denunciation of what currently is demagogically presented as common sense and instrumentally implemented as common-sense policy is also the greatest service that we can render to restore common sense. Notwithstanding, 'denouncing' common sense does not mean to ignore or reject it. Nor does 'restoring' common sense mean to unconditionally accept or apply it. However, denouncing and restoring common sense does mean to revisit its rich intellectual history and reconsider its theoretical strengths and lacunae to reflect its political ramificationsadvantageous as well as disadvantageousand, last but not least, examine whether it can be recalibrated as a robust political concept. This is the complex task that the contributions to this special issue collectively undertake. To do justice to this task, they fulfil the following three interrelated functions: they scrutinise the conceptual foundations and premises as well as practical and political derivations of common sense (analytical function); they explore its ambivalent normative character (evaluative function); and they suggest inherent ways out of this impasse (critical function). The issue commences with an all-encompassing interview with Sophia Rosenfeld whose Common Sense. A Political History (2014) still remains the most comprehensive account of the political valences of common sense. The interview starts with a political comment on the inauspicious political actuality that has befallen the concept of common sense under the second Trump administration. It then investigates the constitutive elements of common sense, namely,Type:journal articleJournal:Journal of Social and Political PhilosophyVolume:5Issue:1 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, On Cicero's Sensus Communis: Common Sense in the Social Laboratory of RhetoricThis article reconstructs Cicero's original contribution to the concept of sensus communis by situating it within Roman rhetorical practice and Cicero's broader social philosophy. Departing from Aristotle's objectoriented and truth-seeking model of rhetoric, Cicero redefines rhetorical activity as a socially embedded, audience-oriented practice aimed at securing the welfare of the state. This shift transforms the rhetor into an orator-statesman whose task is not simply to discover truth, but to mobilise the shared norms, emotions, and expectations of the community. The article argues that Cicero's understanding of sensus communisa socially produced horizon of shared norms, feelings, and ways of actingfunctions as a communal precondition for persuasive public reasoning. By analysing Cicero's four personae in De Officiis, the study shows how Cicero anticipates a theory of collective subjectivity in which individuality emerges from the interplay of reason, singularity, circumstance, and judgement. Through close readings of Pro Plancio and De Oratore, the article ultimately presents sensus communis as both a mode of social belonging and a medium of self-determination within communal life.Type:journal articleJournal:Journal of Social and Political PhilosophyVolume:5Issue:1 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, The Common is the Collective: The Analytics of Common Sense and its Normative Consequences for ImaginationIn this paper, I follow Avshalom Schwartz’s (2024) recent suggestion to treat Aristotle’s imagination as “the psychological microfoundations of collective action and thus helps explain how we can move from individual psychology to collective agency and action.” As I argue, though, imagination can unravel such a political function thanks to the fact that it is an affection (πάθος) of what Aristotle introduces and calls “common sense” (κοινὴ αἴσθησις). In support of this argument, I start by, presenting Schwartz’s reasoning as to why imagination can qualify as the psychological foundation of collective actions. Building upon that, I return to Aristotle’s concept of common sense to sketch its functions. In addition, I qualify common sense as a σύνολον, a condition of individuation, and, leaning on Catherine Malabou and Jacques Derrida, an analysis of common sense as a collective event. In doing so, common sense is disclosed as a collective, both logical-analytical and normative, process that acknowledges, fosters, and accommodates difference. It is thanks to such an understanding of common sense that imagination can act as a regulative and inclusive fundament that can furnish the community with a common, yet inclusive and non-hierarchical or excluding common goal. In conclusion, I hint at further intertwinements of Aristotle’s conceptualization of common sense with concepts like memory and utopia.Type:journal articleJournal:AngelakiVolume:31Issue:1 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, A Relational Psychoanalytic Analysis of Ovid's "Narcissus and Echo": Toward the Obstinate Persistence of the Relational.This article draws on relational psychoanalysis to reinterpret Ovid's version of Narcissus and Echo as a means to reflect on the dynamics of how subjects connect to others and themselves through listening. Attuning to a long tradition of scholarship, we understand Ovid's tale as a rich template for contemplating the difficulties of becoming social. We underline how both protagonists take on essential roles in each other's transformations. While acknowledging how each actor's unique biography creates an intrapsychic vector, we highlight the effect of their encounters in their mutual becoming. We illustrate how the relational space between them plays an essential role in their development as they overcome their unique difficulties in connecting to each other. Our relational-psychoanalytic analysis offers a surprising interpretation, namely, that Narcissus and Echo can ultimately overcome their isolation and connect through their transformation. This illustrates the potential of relational psychoanalysis as an interpretative tool that allows us to understand social dynamics as a product of a relational space in which intra-psychic representations encounter and transform each other, thus contributing to ongoing discussions on the concept of relational subjectivity.Type:journal articleJournal:Open PhilosophyVolume:8Issue:1 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, Overdetermined Solidarity: Rethinking Solidarity as a Form of Agency, a Set of Practices, and Performative Normativity with Jean-Luc Nancy.The paper sketches a social-ontological understanding of solidarity. Following the philosophy of Jean-Luc Nancy, solidarity is neither an intentional collective activity aiming at overcoming significant adversities (cf. Sangiovanni 2015) nor a moral goal (cf. Habermas 1990) or a certain means to avoiding social pathologies (cf. Neuhouser 2022). Rather, solidarity is overdetermined, comprising three interrelated aspects: first, a collective form of agency, given that the subject is a collective entity that embodies the entirety of the different identities that have been inscribed in it through various modes of subjectivity production; second, a set of collective practices that are contingent since they do not bar individual actions and necessary in the sense of not having to be legitimized when manifesting themselves in a collective manner because they correspond to the subject's collective agency; and third, a performative mode of normativity production through collective struggles, where inclusion functions as solidarity's ethical materialization. To explicate how the individual subject can be conceived as a socially structured, collective entity, I refer to Nancy's conceptualization of freedom, to his concept of the body as an "instance par excellence of contradiction" that is "always in the plural", and ultimately to his theory of the irreducible but not incommensurable Other. In doing so, I extrapolate the idea of solidarity as a necessary form of collective agency from Nancy's understanding of the commensurable Other; from his understanding of a body, the idea of solidarity as a contingently necessary set of collective practices; and ultimately, from Nancy's understanding of freedom, the idea of solidarity as a performative normativity that guarantees the holistic and inclusive character of solidary actions.Type:journal articleJournal:Genealogy+CritiqueVolume:10Issue:1 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, The Common Being: An Outline.(2024-05-05); - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, Karen Barad and the Unresolved Challenge of Collectivity: A Case for New Materialisms.(2023-08-22)In this paper, I start by pointing out that despite their differences, Slavoj Žižek and Karen Barad share an understanding of the notions of relationality, processuality, and immanence as central tenets of materialist philosophy. As I argue, however, it is collectivity that acts in both Žižek’s and Barad’s works as a safety valve that lends immanence, processuality, and relationality their materialist quality. To support this argument, I demonstrate that certain forms of collectivity underlie the passage from Werner Heisenberg’s uncertainty to Niels Bohr’s indeterminacy in Barad’s interpretation of Bohr’s ‘philosophy-physics’. However, I claim that there is a further form of collectivity, which I call ‘collectivity as inclusive and holistic overdetermination’, that Barad overlooks and that conditions the indeterminability of indeterminacy. As I argue, the latter also has implications for political agency. I conclude by briefly sketching out how these forms of collectivity can determine the production of subjectivity and, as a consequence, shape the subject’s collective action.Type:journal articleJournal:Technophany, A Journal for Philosophy and TechnologyVolume:2Issue:q - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, Shrapnels: Jacques Derrida's Theory and Practice. Towards an Enigmatic Materialism of Hope.(2023-06-01)Jacques Derrida's lectures on Theory and Practice leave a lot to be desired from the perspective of historical materialism. Yet, one can nonetheless find in them the germ of a genuine understanding of materialism. More specifically, following the systematic use of the word "enigma" in the text, I show that this term serves as the heuristic device for articulating an originally Derridean materialism, one which I name "enigmatic materialism," and which, I argue, is genuinely collective, insofar as it opposes any form of monism. Moreover, this materialism has profound repercussions for the concept of hope developed in these lectures. Hope, from the perspective of an "enigmatic materialist," becomes a collective endeavour that avoids the pitfalls of solipsistic individualism through the joint effort of the subject and its/the Other.Type:journal articleJournal:Symposium: Canadian Journal of Continental PhilosophyVolume:27Issue:1 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, From Common Sense to Collective Practices: A Social‑Ontological Commentary on Gramsci’s Concept of Common Sense.(2022); ; Type:journal articleJournal:Dialectical AnthropologyVolume:46Issue:4