Teleology has been understood from Aristotle onwards to be an evolutionary process. That is, the process of becoming which characterizes the linear process of time can be understood progressively. Something which is imperfect, or lacking, in the immediate moment, seeks to transform itself into a higher form. This is the telos of the object, its direction so to speak within the temporal order. However, this direction is always considered solely according to one perspective concerning time, in no small part because the particular dynamic of teleology is thought to be understandable only retrospectively. However, this idea of temporality, discredited by modern physics, is untenable if we wish to truly understand the power dynamics in which human beings live, and thus escape or master them.
Teleology is a process of becoming—but it is a becoming towards something. Is this something in and of itself eternal, not yet attained, or does it itself transform? Teleology is not carried out progressively, as the past simply evolving towards the future. The past does not simply evolve through a sequence of passing away, just as the future cannot be said to arrive once that which is present has passed away. Rather, the past progresses towards the present to be gripped by the future in an ecstatic and dynamic way in which nothing is truly lost and becoming is shaped by all directions of time.
The primary problem here is ontological—that we still characterize something as being, something as an is, without ever thinking sufficiently about what that statement means. Parmenides, at the beginning of Western thinking stated,
"There remains then. But one word by which to express the true road: is. And on this road there are many signs that what Is has no beginning and never will be destroyed: it is whole, still and without it. It neither was, nor will be, and simply is—now, altogether, one continuous."
Language has deceived us by framing words within a time, within an is, when truly, nothing ever is in such a simple sense of the word, for time does not have moments, even incrementally small ones. Rather, the process of becoming is continuous, and it is shaped as much by what might be considered the future as by what may be considered the past. For within all becoming can be seen the idea of what something will transform into; indeed, the patterns of existence seem to manifest themselves almost purposely towards some goal, but it is not simply the past which propels them but the future which draws them. In this way, time at all points reaches for the centre, for what we conceive as the present. What is present is only the nexus that is man—that abyssal plain which forms the horizon of experience exploding in all directions. Simply try and grasp at what the present itself means and one sees how it slips immediately past us, as we ourselves are already ahead of ourselves.
The moment you try and grasp the meaning of the present, that incremental prism where you attempt and hold it has transformed already into the historical past. When you work, you find yourself thrust ahead of present towards realization, towards the completion of the task. Present evaporates in the utter elasticity of time, its ontology lying only in an influx of genealogical symbols from all directions. The temporal becomes the collapsed centre of a multi-dimensional prism which is the human experience of time. Time itself, what in philosophy is called the eternal, is outside this nexus of relativity, and it is we ourselves, through language in no small part, which are the point of intersection between the temporal and the eternal. We can only conceive this properly when we understand that the past has not disappeared nor is the future a mere abyss of possibility.
Think about people playing basketball. One of the players gets angry and throws the ball at another players head. Because the victim is sure it is going to hit him, he puts up his hand and blocks the shot. He did this because he knew where the ball was in the past, and considered where it was going to be in the future. It was only by seeing the whole of the trajectory that he was able to break the sequence.
Now apply this analogy to systems of knowledge, especially ethical systems of knowledge. Because of the complexities involved, we often don't know where the ball is going. We just try our best to chart that based on what has happened in the past. Even if we do have a good idea of where it will end, that can sometimes be worse. Because we become so involved with these conjectures, we don't see their artificiality—don't see that we're the persons who set them in motion in the first place. They're totally closed systems. They don't become critical, or see other possibilities, because they're involved in a process of ecstatic temporal/telic harmonization within their own logics.
Heidegger considers the idea of time ecstatically in his essay on Time and Being. However, his approach in this essay and others concerned with deconstructing Western thinking, specifically the history of Western Metaphysics, remains rooted in examining the past, remains genealogical—which is ironic given the anticipatory quality of care he developed in Being and Time. In Being and Time, it is the notional future which is given primacy rather than the historical past. This is perhaps the greatest disappointment in Heideggerian philosophy—and why it is only in Time and Being that he approaches tying the his entire corpus together.
We must look at the way power represents itself from the other perspective of time, from the future, to balance our understanding of the human condition. As unusual as this manner of thinking might appear, it is useful to remember that the Ancient Greeks prior to Aristotle, for instance in the plays of Sophocles, did not conceive of time in the linear way we do now.
In his essay on the subject of a Cognitive Theoretical Model of the Universe, independent researcher Christopher Langan, known as the world's smartest man, discusses the idea of telic feedback. This is the idea that, much as the artificial intelligence of a Nano technology understands what the future of its programming is to be and sends signals to the data concerning its ordering, so too can the seemingly probabilistic quantum phenomena of existence be explained unless the future of the universe also signals to the mass-energy which makes up existence, the macro-patterns it is to manifest itself as. This is similar to renowned physicist Dr. David Bohm`s conception of the matter;
"The suggestion is that if you look at the mathematics of the quantum theory it describes a movement of just this nature, a movement of waves that unfold and unfold throughout the whole of space. You could even say that everything is enfolded in this whole, or even in each part, and that it unfolds. I call this an implicate order, the enfolded order, and this unfolds into an explicate order. The implicate is the unfolded order. It unfolds into the explicate order, in which everything is separated."
Or more scientifically, with particular emphasis placed on Dr. Bohm's last comment concerning the relationship of the new physical description of matter to the classical one,
"In the quantum theory, we have seen that none of the properties of these parts can be defined, except in interaction with other parts and that, moreover, different kind of interactions bring about the development of different kinds of "intrinsic" properties of the so called parts. It seems necessary, therefore, to give up the idea that the world can correctly be analyzed into distinctive parts, and to replace it with the assumption the entire universe is basically a single, indivisible unit. Only in the classical limit can the description in terms of component parts be correctly applied without reservations."
This reconceptualization of teleology should not be applied, to my reasoning, only to physical phenomena. Teleology can not be separated from the work of human cognition. Indeed, the various workings of human archaeologies of knowledge establish and order beings, as Foucault indicated. But this is not simply a historical phenomenon. Paradigms cannot simply be explained by the rules established at their foundation in some distant past.
Instead, paradigms evolve because of the end established in their future, much as physics in the last century has structured itself to prepare for the eventual emergence of what Hawking in his Cambridge Lectures describes as a Theory of Everything. Paradigms, and those who work in them, can be anticipatory, even if they are incapable of "knowing," in the sense that we claim to know the past, what it is that we anticipate. Indeed, in all human activities we see the role the future plays in shaping them, at least from a phenomenological point of view. Though teleology may seem empirical phenomena, we must recall the Kantian idea of space and time being artificial categories of our transcendental understanding applied on the physical world.
"Time is not an empirical conception. For neither coexistence no succession would be perceived by us, if the representation of time did not exist a priori. Without this presupposition we could not represent to ourselves that things exist together at one and the same time, or at different times, that is, contemporaneously, or in succession. Time is a necessary representation, lying at the foundation of all our intuitions. With regard to phenomena in general, we cannot think time away from them, and represent them to ourselves as out of and unconnected with time, but we can quite well represent to ourselves time void of phenomena. Time is thereforre given a priori. In it alone is all reality of phenomena possible. These may all be annihilated in thought, but time itself, as the universal condition of their possibility, cannot be so annulled."
To Kant, time exists a priori as a category, not as something empirical, because it is the general condition for the revealing of all phenomena to consciousness. Without a concept of time, consciousness could not think the phenomenal world. Time is categorical because it is dependent on the subject and not something given empirically, even by scientific analysis.
"Time is nothing else than the form of the internal sense, that is, of the self and our internal self, that is, of the intuitions of self and our internal state. It has to do neither with shape nor position; on the contrary it determines the relation of representations in our internal state…Time is therefore merely a subjective condition of our human intuition which is always sensuous, that is, so far as we are affected by objects, and in itself, independently of the mind or subject, is nothing."
Modern physics questions the categorical distinction between space and time, and thus the idea that time cannot be visualized. However, even it increasingly appreciates the role consciousness plays in shaping our empirical observations, an acknowledgement of the power of Kant's argument. The evolutions we regard phenomenologically are guided within an ecstatic time, in which language allows us to point to something as an is, conceive of its past, and anticipate its future. In the same way, as some modern physicists might say, the mind of God conceives of the entire universe, guiding its entire existence with a united view of the past, present and future as one.
But what are the flaws with this? Firstly, such an understanding of time is still purely categorical. Though, as a model, it is useful to explain the processes of human cognition and teleology, certainly more so than the linear model, this does not grant it an unqualified truth.
But more important than this is that by applying this model of time, the effects of various knowledge which emerge historically in time had on shaping human understanding and the limitations they place on human freedom become clearer. Such is not a criticism of the model per se, but instead is a road sign towards a broader critique of power which can only be understood through this model, and thus overcome. For as assimilated by human consciousness, one can better understand within the ecstatic model of time how ideas are manifested as power, most notably as and through knowledge/power and maintained by language. Language, as we have already discussed, has an important relationship to our conception of time. So from a mere analysis of time we must move to a broader critique of human cognition, in all its intersubjectivity. Though the paths of human history seem marked either by chaos or a dialectic progressing from the past, we must understand the organic nature of our activity and our relationship with Being in ecstatic time if authenticity is to be understood.Continued on Next Page »
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Endnotes
1.) See Heidegger, Martin. On Time and Being. Translated by Stambaugh, Joan, HarperCollins, Chicago, 1972
2.) Hawking, Stephen W. God Created the Integers. Running Press, Philadelphia 2007 at 1258
3.) Plato. The Republic and Other Works. Anchor Books, New York, 1989 at 136
4.) See Hume, David. An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals.Hackett Publishing Company Inc, United States, 1983
5.) Aristophanes and Plato. Four Texts on Socrates. Cornell University Press, United States, 1998 at 81
6.) Plato. The Republic and Other Works. Anchor Books, New York, 1989 at 226
7.) Aristotle. The Basic Works of Aristotle. The Modern Library, New York, 2001 at 957
8.) Kierkegaard, Soren. The Last Years: Journals 1853-1855. Fontana Books, Great Britain, 1967
9.) Augustine, Saint. Confessions. Duncan Baird Publishers, London, 2006 at 160
10.) Augustine, Saint. On Free Choice of the Will. Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, 1993
11.) Habermas, Jurgen. The Theory of Communicative Action Volume One: Reason and the Rationalization of Society. Beacon Press, Boston, 1984 at 225
12.) This is a thesis of interpretation that demands explanation. I shall treat the unusual nature of this more systematically in Section II.
13.) Hobbes, Thomas. The Leviathan. Penguin Books, England, 1985 CH 8
14.) Hobbes, Thomas. The Leviathan. Penguin Books, England, 1985 CH 15
15.) I have recently begun to take some of the ideas outlined here concerning time and its relationship to language and the question of Being in more exciting and abstract directions. While I still believe in the theoretic treatment given here, I have come to realize that it remains somewhat tied to traditionalist notions, which limits the scope of the ramifications I have drawn. I hope to treat this subject more expansively in some future work, and would welcome feedback to ensure it is of the highest quality.
16.) Habermas in particular remains somewhat historicist in his sociological treatment of the subject.
17.) Einstein, Albert. "Relativity: The Special and General Theory." Three Rivers Press, New York, 1961 at 62
18.) Aristotle. The Basic Works of Aristotle. The Modern Library, New York, 2001 at 292
19.) Augustine, Saint. Confessions. Duncan Baird Publishers, London, 2006 at 298
20.) Heidegger, Martin. On Time and Being. Translated by Stambaugh, Joan, HarperCollins, Chicago, 1972 at 14
21.) Hegel, Georg Willhelm. The Science of Logic. Humanities Press International, New Jersey, 1969 at 824
22.) Heidegger, Martin. What is Called Thinking? Translated by Gray, J. Glenn, Harper Torchbooks, United States, 2004 at 105
23.) Nietzsche, Frederich. Thus Spoke Zarathurstra. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005 at283-284
24.) One still under-rated thinker who did break from these conventions is Henry Bergson, in Introduction to Metaphysics, Creative Evolution and other books.
25.) Phillip, Wheelwright. The Presocratics. The Odyssey Press, Indianapolis, 1960 at 97
26.) Bohm, David. On Creativity. Routledge Classics, London, 2006 at 129
27.) Bohm, David Quantum Theory. Library of Congress, New York, 1979 at 155
28.) Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Dover, United States, 2003 at 28
29.) Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Dover, United States, 2003 at 32
30.) Wittgenstein, Ludwig. On Certainty. Harper Torchbooks, United States, 1969 at 52
31.) Wittgenstein, Ludwig. On Certainty. Harper Torchbooks, United States at 62
32.) Heidegger, Martin. What is Called Thinking? Translated by Gray, J. Glenn, Harper Torchbooks, United States at 224
33.) Foucault, Michel. The Archaeology of Knowledge. Routeledge, London and New York, 2007 at 146
34.) Foucault, Michel. The Archaeology of Knowledge. Routeledge, London and New York, 2007 at 111
35.) Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1996 at 37
36.) Zukav, Gary. The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics. Harper Collins Publishers, New York, 2001 at 344
37.) Foucault, Michel. The Archaeology of Knowledge. Routeledge, London and New York, 2007 at 191
38.) See the Introduction to Heidegger, Martin. Basic Writings. Harper San Francisco, United States, 1993
39.) Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Translated by Macquarrie, Jogn and Robinson, Edward, Harper Collins, San Franciso, 1962 at 26
40.) Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Translated by Macquarrie, Jogn and Robinson, Edward, Harper Collins, San Franciso, 1962 at 232-238
41.) As I have mentioned in my section on Time, my views on this have expanded somewhat, to consider the possibility of language as a medium of intersection between time as traditionally understood and eternity. In this I was inspired in no small part by David Bohm's concept of a dynamic language.
42.) Bacon, Francis. Essays. J.M Dent and Sons Limited, London, 1992
43.) Hobbes, Thomas. The Leviathan. Penguin Books, England, 1985 at 110
44.) Kierkegaard, Soren. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments. Princeton Press, United States, 1992
45.) Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, Routelege, London and New York, 2002, at 11
46.) Augustine, Saint. Confessions of a Sinner. Duncan Baird Publishers, London, 2006 at 15
47.) Wittgeinstein, Ludwig. The Philosophical Investigations. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, 2001 at 20-21
48.) Zizek, Slavoj. The Sublime Object of Ideology. Verso, London, 2008 at 59
49.) Bohm, David. On Creativity. Routledge Classics, London, 2006 at 15
50.) Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1996 at 122
51.) Kierkegaard, Soren. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments. Princeton Press, United States, 1992 at 390-391
52.) Kafka, Franz. The Trial. Penguin Books, England, 1994 at 164
53.) I would like to note here that I am reasoning according to the Kierkegaardian (we might say traditional) interpretation of Hegel as something of an absolutist. Throughout the course of preparing this work I have become aware of the pioneering work of Slavoj Zizek, who in the Sublime Object of Ideology and other books has been undertaking a fascinating a invaluable re-interpretation of Hegel as the philosopher who above all had respect for difference. While I disagree with Zizek crucially on this matter, there is no doubt much fruitful ground for debate here, and I look forward to addressing these important issues in a future work.
54.) Hegel, Georg Willhelm. Logic: Part I of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences., Oxford Press, Oxford, 1975 at 128
55.) Hegel, Georg Willhelm Fredrich. The Phenomenology of Spirit. Oxford University Press, United States, 1977 at 12
56.) Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Dover, United States, 2003 at 303
57.) Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Practical Reason. Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1985 at 114
58.) Hegel, Georg Willhelm. The Philosophy of Right. Prometheus Books, New York, 1996 at 270
59.) Hegel, Georg Willhelm. The Philosophy of Right. Prometheus Books, New York, 1996 at 154
60.) Hegel, Georg Willhelm. Logic: Part I of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences., Oxford Press, Oxford, 1975 at 119
61.) Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Frederich The Phenomenology of Spirit (Oxford University Press, United States, 1977) at 311
62.) Habermas, Jurgen. The Theory of Communicative Action Volume One: Reason and the Rationalization of Society. Beacon Press, Boston, 1984 at 256
63.) Popper, Karl. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. Routeledge, London and New York, 2002 at 94
64.) Quine, W.V Qunitessence (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2004) at 50
65.) See Foucault, Michel. "The Foucault Reader" Pantheon, United States, 1984
66.) Heidegger, Martin. The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. Harper and Row, United States, 1997 at 109
67.) Hegel, Georg Willhelm. The Philosophy of Right. Prometheus Books, New York, 1996 at 240
68.) Habermas, Jurgen. The Theory of Communicative Action Volume Two : Lifeworld and System; A Critique of Functionalist Reason Beacon Press, Boston, 1984 at 340
69.) Habermas, Jurgen. The Theory of Communicative Action Volume Two : Lifeworld and System; A Critique of Functionalist Reason Beacon Press, Boston, 1984 at 355
70.) Habermas, Jurgen. The Theory of Communicative Action Volume Two : Lifeworld and System; A Critique of Functionalist Reason Beacon Press, Boston, 1984 at 397
71.) David Bohm's theory of implicate order is one promising source, dealing as it does with language, science and the connection between mind and world in a radically creative fashion. Another promising source is in the work of Alain Badiou, who is pioneering a return to philosophy as philosophy in works such as Being and Event, Conceptions, and others.
72.) Kierkegaard, Soren. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments. Princeton Press, United States, 1992 at 339
73.) Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Translated by Macquarrie, Jogn and Robinson, Edward, Harper Collins, San Franciso, 1962 at 1
74.) Kierkegaard, Soren. Philosophical Fragments: Or a Fragment of Philosophy. Princeton Press, New Jersey, 1962 at 45
75.) Kierkegaard, Soren. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments. Princeton Press, United States, 1992 at 190
76.) Kierkegaard, Soren. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments. Princeton Press, United States, 1992 at 224
77.) Hegel, Georg Willhelm. The Phenomenology of Spirit. Oxford University Press, United States, 1977 at 277
78.) Kierkegaard, Soren. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments. Princeton Press, United States, 1992 at 253
79.) Kierkegaard, Soren. The Sickness Unto Death. Penguin Books, London, 2008 at 40
80.) Kierkegaard, Soren. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments. Princeton Press, United States, 1992 at 328
81.) Kierkegaard, Soren. The Last Years: Journals 1853-1855. Fontana Books, Great Britain, 1967 at 152
82.) Heidegger, Martin. Discourse on Thinking. Harper and Row, San Francisco, 1966 at 46
83.) Heidegger, Martin. What is Called Thinking? Translated by Gray, J. Glenn, Harper Torchbooks, United States, 2004 at 244
84.) Habermas, Jurgen. The Theory of Communicative Action Volume Two : Lifeworld and System; A Critique of Functionalist Reason Beacon Press, Boston, 1984 at 98
85.) Habermas, Jurgen. The Theory of Communicative Action Volume Two : Lifeworld and System; A Critique of Functionalist Reason Beacon Press, Boston, 1984 at 75
86.) Habermas, Jurgen. The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. MIT Press, Massachusetts, 1987 at 137
87.) Habermas, Jurgen. The Theory of Communicative Action Volume One: Reason and the Rationalization of Society. Beacon Press, Boston, 1984 at 287
88.) Habermas, Jurgen. The Theory of Communicative Action Volume Two : Lifeworld and System; A Critique of Functionalist Reason Beacon Press, Boston, 1984 at 75
89.) Habermas, Jurgen. The Theory of Communicative Action Volume One: Reason and the Rationalization of Society. Beacon Press, Boston, 1984 at 389-391
90.) [90] Habermas, Jurgen. Between Facts and Norms. MIT Press, Massachusetts, 1998 at 121
91.) Carroll, Lewis. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Puffin, England 1997 at 237.
92.) It might appear more sensible, given the critique of calculative and instrumental reason which pervades much of this work to have focused more on Mills' theory, given its strong utilitarian justification and general employment of these methods. However, Rawls' book offers more fruitful discourse since much of it is taken over to justifying many of the same principles through a different, largely deontological, methodology. It must therefore be shown how even this powerful variant of liberalism is tied to the conjectures of modernity I have traced prior, or new one's of its own making, if we are to move past them.
93.) Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Harvard University Press, Massachusetts, 2001 at 519-520
94.) Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Harvard University Press, Massachusetts, 2001 at 302
95.) Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Harvard University Press, Massachusetts, 2001 at 102
96.) Rawls, John. "A Theory of Justice." Harvard University Press, Massachusetts, 2001 at 565
97.) Kant, Immanuel. The Metaphysics of Morals. Cambridge, New York, 1996 at 30
98.) Rawls, John. "A Theory of Justice." Harvard University Press, Massachusetts, 2001 at 17
99.) The book has been cited as rejuvenating the Anglo-American tradition of political philosophy, and has been called the most influential theory since those of Sidgwick and Mills.
100.) Rawls, John. Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2001 at 89
101.) Rawls, John. Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2001 at 202
102.) Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Harvard University Press, Massachusetts, 2001 at 388
103.) Dyzenhaus, David. Liberalism After the Fall. Philosophy & Social Criticism, Vol. 22, No. 3, 9-37, 1996 at 2
104.) Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Harvard University Press, Massachusetts, 2001 at 352
105.) Dyzenhaus, David. Liberalism After the Fall. Philosophy & Social Criticism, Vol. 22, No. 3, 9-37, 1996 at 16
106.) Dyzenhaus, David. Liberalism After the Fall. Philosophy & Social Criticism, Vol. 22, No. 3, 9-37, 1996 at 17
107.) Schmitt, Carl. The Concept of the Political: Expanded Edition. The University of Chicago Press,Chicago and London, 2007 at 93
108.) Habermas somewhat esoterically traces the democratic tradition as far back as Aristotle, echoing Arendt's sympathetic treatment of the polis. I feel the treatment of democracy is that thinker is more contentious than they grant, especially given the strong perfectionist orientation in the Nichomachean Ethics and other works, and so choose to trace the genealogy from Rousseau instead, whose theory of will formation powerfully blends the modern and ancient values.
109.) Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Harrvard University Press, Massachusetts, 2001 at 565
110.) See Rawls, John. The Idea of Public Reason Revisited
111.) An excellent example might be the Harper Government's recent decision to prorogue Parliament in spite of majority opposition protests.
112.) Habermas, Jurgen. Between Facts and Norms. MIT Press, Massachusetts, 1998 at 409
113.) This should not be confused with the Prelude to the Metaphysic of Morals, which is Kant's more famous piece outlining the foundations of what is now known as deontology. What I am referring to is Kant's belief that rights are meant to ensure a harmony of freedom and autonomy between citizens existing within the state, as articulated in Part I of the book, the Doctrine of Right.
114.) Habermas, Jurgen. Between Facts and Norms. MIT Press, Massachusetts, 1998 at 180
115.) I hesitate to characterize the debate more traditionally as between natural law theorists and positivism, since I do not believe the powerful contemporary theory of legal hermeneutics, best articulated as Dworkin's theory of law as integrity, is reducible to traditional natural law theorizing.
116.) He draws perhaps overmuch on continental sociologies, without acknowledging Rawls' worth wile arguments to the same affect in Part III of Theory.
117.) Schmitt, Carl. The Concept of the Political: Expanded Edition. The University of Chicago Press,Chicago and London, 2007
118.) Habermas, Jurgen. Between Facts and Norms. MIT Press, Massachusetts, 1998 at 182
119.) Zizek, Slavoj. The Fragile Absolute. Verso, London, 2007. I have also read his book the Sublime Object of Ideology, which has opened up the whole field of pycho-analysis for me. There are many congruencies between the critical approaches we take, and I hope to conduct a more thorough investigation in the future.
120.) Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Belknap Press, Massachusetts, 2005 at 118
121.) See Habermas, Jurgen. Between Facts and Norms. MIT Press, Massachusetts, 1998 Chapter 3.3
122.) Habermas, Jurgen. Between Facts and Norms. MIT Press, Massachusetts, 1998 at 263
123.) See Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Belknap Press, Massachusetts, 2005, Sen, Amartya Development as Freedom. Anchor, U.S.A, 2000. Henry Shue's doctrine of double edged rights is also promising.
124.) Habermas, Jurgen. Between Facts and Norms. MIT Press, Massachusetts, 1998 at 23.