The aim of this study is to present Albert Camus’and Karl Jaspers’ interpretations of Ivan Karamazov’s rebellion as the diagnoses of the weakness of the human intellect in confrontation with the world and the criticism of rationalism. Therefore, in the introduction I will present those fragments of the novel that characterize Ivan’s rebellion as highly abstract and theoretical. At the same time, this common literary context serves as the ground for reconstruction and comparison of the basic philosophical assumptions of each author. The intention of the remaining part of the paper is, firstly, to reconstruct A. Camus’ and K. Jaspers’epistemology and, secondly, to analyse the arguments against Ivan’s attitude formulated by the writers. Their criticisms of the protagonist’s excessive trust in intellect is based on their own concepts of human epistemic capacity, which are related to the problems of the absurd in A. Camus’ and transcendence in K. Jaspers’ writings. The question of nihilism demands analysis of A. Camus’ idea of the nature of rebellion as both affirmative and negative, and of K. Jaspers’ notion of faith as pre-intellectual trust. Finally, their criticisms of the slogan “If there is no God, then anything is allowed” introduces the problem of freedom, which allows the comparison of the concepts of solidarity (A. Camus) and communication (K. Jaspers). In the conclusion these two philosophical attitudes are discussed together.

The paper offers a new model of politics adequate for the Anthropocene epoch. It uses the concept of ‘heterotopia’ to argue for the environmental potential of Arendtian political philosophy. The adopted meaning of heterotopia combines its Foucauldian (as interpreted by L. De Cauter and M. Dehaene) and medical sources. It is argued that, thus understood, the concept can be applied to the Arendtian idea of judgment. In this capacity, the concept of heterotopia is both politically foundational and environmentally relevant. It helps us maintain the idea of politics as humanely construed activity, while recognising that political actors are also natural beings, whose actions draw on and affect the non-human world.

The paper revises the idea of speech as a fundamental political faculty in response to the challenges of the Anthropocene. First, it is argued that, rather than as a subsystem of language, speech should be conceptualized as the expression of the embodied capacity of voice (in this respect, the paper follows Adriana Cavarero's [2005] argument). Secondly, vocality is linked to the faculty of taste (understood as in Arendt's reading of Kant) to locate politics in the broader order of materiality (physis). It is argued that the combination of these two sensualities can help us develop the idea of politics as an activity that is both specifically human and located in the broader order of materiality (the Earth system).

The paper offers a type of internal criticism of Martha Nussbaum’s liberal political philosophy. On the one hand, Nussbaum’s claims to political liberalism (as defined by Rawls) are questioned. It is argued that her capabilities-based liberalism remains committed to a broader, primarily Aristotelian account of the human condition. As a result, it exceeds the limits imposed by political liberalism with its focus on citizenship and non-comprehensive foundations of political regimes. On the other hand, the paper argues that Nussbaum’s project can meet the basic normative objective of political liberalism. That is to say, it offers a convincing solution to the question: how can liberal values be stable in a society, given that liberalism endorses the plurality of acceptable normative doctrines? Nussbaum is able to address this issue, because her rich philosophical commitments allow her to complement liberal tenets with a compatible account of practical reasoning complementary. The paper focuses on one of the elements of this conception, i.e. Nussbaum’s theory of emotions and their role in a political culture.

The aim of the paper is to draw politico-aesthetic consequences from Martha Nussbaum’s capabilities approach. It is argued that this can be achieved by focusing on the notion of vulnerability implied by the idea of capabilities. The recognition of the vulnerability of the human good inspires a new model of practical rationality based on perception. This idea, in turn, explores the aesthetic connotations of perception implied by its etymology (the ancient Greek for perception being aesthesis). Thus, political aesthetics is understood as the inquiry into the political consequences of the affinity between ethics and aesthetics, as well as the political relevance of the notion of beauty.