https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/1926 2026-04-16T06:29:52Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/145536 Title: Pathologies of passion Authors: Young, Niki Abstract: In this paper, I aim to clarify and expand Alphonso Lingis’ understanding of impassioned states by showing how society pathologises passion through the language of emotions, there by obscuring the excesses that are constitutive of life. I proceed by first analysing how modernity reconfigures disruptive passions into manageable emotional states that sustain regularity, utility, and calculative models of the self. Second, I elaborate six interrelated properties of passion while systematically contrasting the latter with culturally coded emotions. Finally, I briefly examine how literature, theatre, cinema, and media narratives disclose the contingent, irrational forces that shape individual lives. I conclude that pathologising passion is not a neutral diagnostic gesture but a deeply philosophical operation that props up a shallow, needs-based conception of agency, and I argue instead for a philosophical practice that attends to impassioned ruptures and shared festive intensities as indispensable revelations of the real forces that contour both individual and collective existence. 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/144530 Title: On the derivation of an ought from an Is : the stakes of Alphonso Lingis’ moral realism Authors: Young, Niki Abstract: On the Derivation of an Ought from an Is: The Stakes of Alphonso Lingis’ Moral Realism – In this paper, I construct a systematic approach to Alphonso Lingis’ take on the «is/ought problem», namely the question of whether it is possible to derive normativity from being or moral imperatives from facts. I show that his solution to the problem involves the three-pronged system. First, Lingis is shown to be a champion of realism in his recognition that beings themselves throw their weight around by issuing directives for action. Second, I show how sensibility’s subservience to the demands of the imperative is not enough, since one must also be able to appropriate and channel its force via what Lingis terms passionate states. Finally, I explore how the investment in an object of passion brings the intrinsic importance of the thing to the fore in order to guide the subject toward the investment of excess energies. 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/144075 Title: Neoliberalism and the production of new forms of being Abstract: Neoliberalism is identified as the dominant paradigm in contemporary Western politics. The victory over Communism and the Soviet Union is attributed to this political vision that endorses the free market and hyper-capitalism as its main strengths. The political leaders who are viewed as the antithesis and enemies of Communism are staunch supporters and enforcers of the neoliberal worldview. Personages like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan have brought neoliberalism into every household, rendering it the only viable alternative. This process achieved its full potential when even left-wing political pundits adopted neoliberalism as their political and economic strategy. Irrespective of the political spectrum, the main principles of the neoliberal model are advanced and utilised as the blueprint for their policymaking and for setting their agenda. Thus, progressive leaders like Barack Obama or right-wing leaders like Donald J. Trump both fall under the tent of neoliberalism. Irrespective of their social views, they both endorse a business-first approach, prioritising the economy over other considerations. This leads to the emergence of economic theology as the primary governmental paradigm, superseding the political. Therefore, this fully encompassing reality has led me to ask, “How does neoliberal economic theology produce neoliberalised forms of life?” This inquiry emerges from the realisation that contemporary society and life are shaped and defined by neoliberal principles that have become the essence of our zeitgeist. Every individual has been transformed into a neoliberal subject whose purpose is to advance the economy and follow the dictates of the market. Human relations are reduced to trade and competitive relations, and the sense of self is founded on our position in the competitive order and the human capital we have attained. Thus, under neoliberalism, new forms of life are created. These considerations lead to the claim that neoliberalism has the same reality-forming quality found in religions and their theological framework. The market is a fundamental principle upon which all else is founded, effectively making it a theological or essentialist truth. This is most pronounced in Friedrich August Hayek, who declares the market as a spontaneous order not of human design and outside of human knowledge and control. Under this metaphysical guise, reality is reframed according to the workings of this principium. New technologies, like other institutions, are designed to mirror and promulgate the principles of the market because they aim to reflect reality. With Hayek, the market is nature, and its mechanisms are natural laws. This intellectual scheme produces its understanding of life, thus producing forms of life that abide by these laws. This thesis proposes a reading of neoliberalism as a worldview constituted of a secularised theology that produces a normative discourse that categorises humans and their actions. These discourses and conceptual schemas are imposed on the world via forms of dispositif and techniques aided by new technological developments. The conjunction of all these creates forms of power, namely pastoral power, which has jurisdiction and authority over life, leading towards producing neoliberal categories and forms of life. This claim is developed by closely reading Hayek’s theories, presenting these as a monotheistic secularised theology. With slogans like “There is no alternative” and “The market knows best,” no space is left for social and political visions that do not believe in this new theology. Description: Ph.D.(Melit.) 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/143841 Title: Cyberspace as a neoliberal dream Authors: Zammit, François Abstract: Cyberpunk offers a vision into the consequences of neoliberal economic and social policies implemented since the Reagan and Thatcher administrations. The economic inequalities, lack of social safety nets, and restricted presence of state institutions reflect a neoliberal socio-economic order. In a cyberpunk reality, we also encounter cyberspace as a market order. It emerges from the proliferation of a ubiquitous cybereconomy that operates as a market economy, free from government intervention. The cyberpunk imaginary depicts cyberspace as a psychogeography in which individuals pursue their own goals and act in their self-interest. In cyberspace, individuals and corporations have dealings, interactions, and business relationships that follow the rules and norms that have emerged as part of the self-organising process of cyberspace. Therefore, cyberspace is a form of spontaneous order that entails complex selforganising systems and mechanisms that arise from the multitude of interactions that happen within it. This paper aims to use the imagery of cyberspace to show how cyberpunk literature formulates in tangible ways the realities of a market order as envisioned and proposed by neoliberal thinkers like Hayek, thus providing the public with a critique of the neoliberal dream of an unregulated market order. 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z