Reflevixity & Situatedness
(with side orders of slumming & liberal guilt)
Study Guide

Compiled by Ralph Dumain

“Magritte said that one could not provide a valid explanation of something until one had explained that explanation.”
          — Bernard Noël [in Magritte (New York: Crown, 1977), p. 52]

Writings by Ralph Dumain

On reflexivity & situatedness

On Unreflective Reflexivity (Review: Hilary Lawson, Reflexivity: The Post-Modern Predicament)

Philosophy as Autobiography: Alternatives to Subjectivism

Critique of John McCumber, "Problems and Renewal in American Philosophy" (part of section McCumber Marking Time)

Cultural Criticism and the Social Division of Labor

The German Ideology After 150 Years

Alvin Gouldner: Notes & Commentary

The Routledge Companion to Twentieth-Century Philosophy: contents & commentary

The Positivist Dispute in German Sociology: Notes, Questions & Comments
   I: Adorno's Introduction

Letter on Sapir-Whorf discussions at LogFest ’89 and other topics

Hegel on the Owl of Minerva

On slumming, liberal tolerance, angst, & narcissistic self-consciousness

Anxious Intellects: From Contradiction to Complacency (book review)

Winchester Catharsis (Review: James J. Winchester, Aesthetics Across the Color Line: Why Nietzsche (Sometimes) Can't Sing the Blues)

Remembering the Past and Forgetting Yourself, Or, Why Oprah Is Not an Abolitionist (Review: Elizabeth McHenry, Forgotten Readers: Recovering the Lost History of African American Literary Societies, Epilogue)

Taoism & the Tao of Bourgeois Philosophy (review of J. J. Clarke, The Tao of the West)

On multiculturalism, particularism, & identity politics

The Traditional Canon vs. Multiculturalism in the Literary Profession: A Sterile Debate

New Year's Resolution: Exploring Philosophical Cultures (December 2003 - January 2004) See sections "27-30 December 2003: Wisdom & the American Philosophical Association," "McCumber Marking Time," "Bogus Ethnophilosophy," "Winchester Catharsis."

The Reactionary Philosophy, Ambiguous Aesthetics, and Revolutionary Politics of Herbert Marcuse (draft). See final sections: "The Future," "Whose Future?".

Outsider Art & Identity Politics: A Dialogue on the Ideology of Politically Correct Art (Ralph & Sally)

Privilege — The Intersectionality Game

On self-referentiality

Cultural Sophistication and Self-Reference on American Television: Seeds of Hope?

On logic & paradox

Graham Priest, Paraconsistent Logic, and Philosophy, Or, Logic and Reality

“Surrationally Yours”

Bibliographies & study guides

Biographical and Psychological Dimensions of Philosophy: Selected Bibliography

Cynical Reason Today: A Selected Bibliography

Annotated Bibliography on Language and Thought

Philosophy of Paraconsistency & Associated Logics (Web Guide)

Irony, Humor, & Cynicism Study Guide

Ideology Study Guide

Jorge Luis Borges: Selected Study Materials on the Web

Italo Calvino: A Select Bibliography

Doubt & Skepticism: A Directed Minimal Bibliography & Web Guide

Thinking Critically About Critical Thinking: A Guide

The Paranoia Papers: Theory of the (Un)Natural History of Social Paranoia: Selected Bibliography

Writings & Quotations by Others

“On the Dialectics of Metamathematics” (Excerpts) by Peter Várdy

What Is Cynical Reason? Peter Sloterdijk Explains

Quotable Quotes from The German Ideology by Marx & Engels

Lenin on Seventy Marxes

"Popes, Kings & Cultural Studies: Placing the commitment to non-disciplinarity in historical context" by Karl Maton

Alvin Gouldner on Intellectuals & the Social Totality

Alvin Gouldner on the New Class & the Culture of Critical Discourse

"Theory and Ideology" by Alvin W. Gouldner

The Dialectic of Ideology and Technology: The Origins, Grammar, and Future of Ideology by Alvin W. Gouldner
      The Splitting
      Ideological Discourse as Rationality and False Consciousness (sections 0 - 5.3)
      [Basil Bernstein, Elaborated & Restricted Linguistic Codes]

The Positivist Dispute in German Sociology by Theodor W. Adorno et al

Richard Wright Defines The Outsider

Richard Wright’s Outsider, Negroes & Flying Saucers

Essays on Other Sites

Anthony Giddens - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Reflexivity, Relationism, & Research: Pierre Bourdieu and the Epistemic Conditions of Social Scientific Knowledge" by Karl Maton

Meanwhile, down the Uni Bar ..... by Karl Maton

The Theory of Positive Self-Reference by Anders Bordum, May 2002

Online Reference Works

Reflexivity (social theory) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Entry needs work.

Ethnoepistemology (James Maffie), The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Shameless drivel.

Self-Knowledge (Brie Gertler), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Critical Theory (James Bohman), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Social Epistemology (Alvin Goldman), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Bibliographies on Other Sites
(Behold the Enemy)

Voices: Self Reflexity Bibliography

Reflexivity & Reflection: A Bibliography by Rebecca Moore Howard

Reflexive Social Theory

Bibliography: Self-Consciousness

Bibliographical References

Balaban, Oded. Subject and Consciousness: A Philosophical Inquiry into Self-Consciousness. Savage, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1990.

Chai, Leon. Romantic Theory: Forms of Reflexivity in the Revolutionary Era. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006.

Conversations About Reflexivity, edited by Margaret S. Archer. Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge, 2010.

Hamilton, Paul. Metaromanticism: Aesthetics, Literature, Theory. Chicago; London: The University of Chicago Press, 2003.

O'Rourke, James. Review, Studies in Romanticism, Winter 2004.

Yager, Colin. Review, Romantic Circles Reviews, 2009.

Modernity: An Introduction to Modern Societies, edited by Stuart Hall et al. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1995. Note final chapter for splendid exercise in narcissistic reflexivity. To be reviewed by R. Dumain.

Siegle, Robert. The Politics of Reflexivity: Narrative and the Constitutive Poetics of Culture. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986.

Simpson, David. Situatedness: Or, Why We Keep Saying Where We're Coming From. Durham: Duke University Press, 2002.

Thomas-Fogiel, Isabelle. The Death of Philosophy: Reference and Self-Reference in Contemporary Thought, translated by Richard A. Lynch. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011.

CONTACT Ralph Dumain

Uploaded 6 June 2005
Last updated 6 September 2021
Previous update 17 November 2020