Karl Schmitz‐Moormann argues that the doctrines of God and Creation, usually explicated in Roman Catholic theology by using the analogy of being, must rather be conceived in light of evolution and an analogy of becoming. God the Trinity, characterized by unity, information, and freedom, provides the image toward which the creation tends in its evolutionary processes. Informed by Teilhard and others, the author hereby provides more of a new research program for theology's engagement with natural science than a fully developed (...) theology. (shrink)

While Merleau-Ponty’s political positions evolved over the course of his career, they are grounded in and guided by a remarkably consistent account of historicity. Praxis requires authentic historical engagement; and Merleau-Ponty was critical of inauthentic a-historical approaches throughout his career. I chart a trajectory of Merleau-Ponty’s position from The War Has Taken Place (1945), through some of the newly published material from the mid to late 1940’s Michel Dalissier’s monumental two volume collection of inédits, and the Introduction to Signs (1960). (...) This results in two surprising and admittedly controversial observations that contradict dominant narratives. I argue that: (1) Merleau-Ponty’s account of historicity precludes the claim that he abandoned Marxism altogether with the writing of Adventures of the Dialectic (1955); and (2) Merleau-Ponty’s account of historicity reveals the dominant Western narrative about the war in Ukraine to be inauthentic. (shrink)

The dispute between determinists and libertarians often fails to distinguish two issues: Is a man responsible for his behavior?; and Is man to be considered an integral part of the natural order, or something transcendently related to it? I wish to argue both that man is responsible and that there is nothing about him which transcends the natural causal order.

Merleau-Ponty, in Humanism and Terror, addresses the spectrum of problems related to revolutionary action. His essay, Eye and Mind, is best known as a contribution to aesthetics. A common structure exists in these apparently disparate works. We must reject the illusion of subjective clairvoyance as a standard of revolutionary praxis; but also we must reject any idealised light of reason that illuminates all—that promises a history without shadows. The revolutionary nature of an act must be established as such through praxis. (...) The creative praxes of the political revolutionary or the revolutionary artist are recognised ex post facto; yet each involves the creation of its own new aesthetic wherein the value of that praxis is to be understood spontaneously and all at once. (shrink)

Summary The optical quality and properties of over 200 telescopes residing in museums and private collections have been measured and tested with the goal of obtaining new information about the early development of the achromatic lens (1757–1770). Quantitative measurements of the chromatic and spherical aberration of telescope objective lenses were made and are discussed within the context of John and Peter Dollond's description of their efforts to overcome these two optical defects inherent in any single lens. Their work was chronicled (...) in the Philosophical Transactions of 1758 and 1765. An important finding of this investigation is that a particular form of the achromatic lens that has been suggested as being a rare and early form by some investigators, and presumably introduced by Chester Moor Hall, was in fact found to be numerous and present in most museums and many private collections. It is shown that the colour correction of an early eighteenth-century doublet telescope objective is very sensitive to the ratio of the flint to crown glass focal lengths, as well as the variations of the indices of refraction with colour. This sensitivity would preclude any simple recipe for constructing an achromatic lens. The third order theory of spherical aberration of Nevil Maskelyne is reexamined, in which he pointed out that John Dollond developed a theoretical formula equivalent to what today is called geometric third order spherical aberration theory. (shrink)

Robert Litman descreve quatro casos extraordinários em que indivíduos revelam esse conhecimento reprimido por meio da análise de sonhos após o suicídio do “outro”. Em cada caso, ocorre um momento de reconhecimento da significância do sonho tal que o sujeito se dá conta da culpabilidade. E, em cada caso, essa culpabilidade teve que ver com uma interrupção na comunicação que é revelada através da psicanálise. Quero desconstruir a relação transferência-contratransferência como uma reciprocidade simbiótica. Não ouso adiante, inalterado, quando transcendo quem (...) eu era através da língua com outros. A língua é a alteração da subjetividade. Ofereço uma crítica de certas compreensões de alteridade envolvidas em psicoterapia pelo exame da situação geral do encontro com outros por meio do evento-língua, peculiar à psicoterapia. Devo reconhecer que a ameaça da alteridade do paciente é também a promessa da minha habilidade em oferecer ajuda. Se consideramos seriamente a transcendência do evento-língua da terapia, vemos que o processo de alteração do outro implica mudanças para todos os envolvidos.Robert Litman describes four remarkable cases where individuals reveal this repressed knowledge through dream analysis after the suicide of the “other.” In each case, there comes a moment of recognition of the significance of the dream such that the subject realizes culpability. And in each case, this culpability had to do with a communication breakdown that is revealed through psychoanalysis. I want to deconstruct the transference / counter-transference relationship as a symbiotic reciprocity. I do not venture forth unchanged as I transcend who I was through language with others. Language is alteration of subjectivity. I offer a criticism of certain understandings of alterity involved in psychotherapy by examining the general situation of the encounter with others through the peculiar language-event of psychotherapy. I must recognize that the threat of the alterity of the patient is also the promise of my ability to offer help. If we take seriously the transcendence of the language-event of therapy, we see that the process of altering another involves changes for all involved. (shrink)

There is something uncanny about the importance of a place we call “home” given that is a designation fraught with apparent arbitrariness, ambiguity, and polysemy. We need to have a better understanding of home. This disproportionality between its designation and its importance reflects an existential rift: the importance of being at any particular place we call home is not designated a priori, permanent, intrinsically meaningful, or valuable yet no one would deny its importance in our experience. The value of being (...) at home is lived. The meaning and value of home are expressions of propriety that are neither capricious nor given as such: they are institutions in the sense that Maurice Merleau-Ponty used that term. Our identity emerges in the context of the institution of home. These elucidations use Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological notion of institution to foreground some insights in the nature of home in the works of fiction and non-fiction by the Nobel Prize-winning writer, Toni Morrison. Her literary work, intimately grounded in lived experience, as well as her critical insights, will help us understand what sets the institution of home apart from other institutions is its orienting propriety. (shrink)

This dissertation is concerned with the ethical nature of language. Contrary to most post-modern and post-structuralist accounts, I argue that a thoughtful examination of the intersubjective relations of interlocutors can be accomplished without unduly privileging the subject, and can open new paths of inquiry into the ethical bonds of the human situation. ;I begin from the existential-phenomenological perspective of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Merleau-Ponty's notion of the self engaged with others in speaking, writing, and gesturing developed continuously over the course of his (...) writings. But this account is one which must be gathered piecemeal from his diverse written works, which range in topic through psychology, political philosophy, aesthetics, philosophy of language, and many others. In the first part of the dissertation, I provide a thematic exegesis of these passages collected from the earliest and latest periods of his work. ;In the second part, I argue that the notion of the self which emerges from part one provides a fruitful starting point for reflection in the domain of ethics. Contrary to thinkers like Derrida, Foucault, and Baudrillard, I contend that the individual engaged in language is best thought of as communicating subjectivity; and this subjectivity is already predisposed toward intersubjective communion. ;Next, I expand upon the work of Calvin O. Schrag. There is an ideality which is manifest in communicative praxis which points toward a radicalized understanding of responsibility, and which undergirds the proper critical standpoint for ethical as well as social philosophy. This can be achieved, I argue, only by rethinking the traditional notions of universality, particularity, and transcendence inherited from our Kantian practical tradition. ;Finally, I show that this notion of responsibility must emerge as distinct from a transcendental posture assumed by thinkers like Apel and Habermas, a volitional posture like Sartre's, or any traditional posture based upon a faculty psychology. The communion of communicative praxis is best understood from an existential-ontological inquiry standpoint, and is defined as care. Responsibility for thoughtful discriminations and discernment within the human ethical and social situation is shown to be an issue due to, and not in spite of, corporeality. (shrink)

My purpose is to present a thesis concerning the nature of philosophical argument. I shall present it by way of examining a number of philosophical disputes. Whether all philosophical disputes resemble the ones I examine is an empirical question. However, I suspect they do. My thesis concerns the nature of the process involved in the adopting or abandoning of ‘basic assumptions’ or ‘presuppositions’..

As considerações de Merleau-Ponty sobre a historicidade são significativas, tanto como um relato fenomenológico, quanto como um relato existencial de nossa situação histórica. Naturalmente, estes aspectos de seu trabalho não se excluem mutuamente, mas se entrelaçam. E cada aspecto contribui para o sentido da crise da historicidade humana. Primeiro consideraremos a crise fenomenológica da historicidade – ou seja, consideraremos a crise da historicidade fenomenologicamente. Esta é a tentativa de revelar as condições da possibilidade da história a partir da história ou (...) da estrutura de nossa situação histórica – onde a posição de Merleau-Ponty se afasta da fenomenologia husserliana. Em seguida, consideraremos a crise existencial de historicidade – ou seja, consideraremos a crise de historicidade existencialmente. Esta é a tentativa de compreender o imperativo de que as coisas são importantes para nós historicamente. Finalmente, vamos indicar brevemente a importância destes aspectos de nossa historicidade como um entrelaçamento crítico. Este entrelaçamento crítico revela a intrusão mútua do “como” e do “porquê” de nossa historicidade, que Merleau-Ponty descreve no final de sua carreira como uma existência chiasmática dentro da carne do mundo. O cruzamento crítico como interrogatório de nosso ser histórico fornece o “quem”, “o quê”, “quando” e “onde” de nossa historicidade. (shrink)

In his final and posthumously published work, The Visible and the Invisible, Maurice Merleau-Ponty employed the term "dehiscence" as a wonderful metaphor to describe our emergence within the world. This botanical term aptly calls to mind both the efflorescence of individuality within a shared context and the development of the practical implications of Merleau-Ponty's thought. The latter subject is the principal focus of the works collected in this book. Part One, a translation of three recently discovered letters between Jean-Paul Sartre (...) and Merleau-Ponty, provides a detailed record of the disagreement over political issues that ultimately drove the two philosophers apart. Part Two contains five essays devoted to the politcal implications of Merleau-Ponty's later thought; some scholars criticize the attempt to find practical political applications for this thought; others suggest how such a project might be accomplished. Part Three contains another five essays devoted to the ethical implications of these later texts. As in the previous section, some are critical assessments, others adumbrate the ways in which these insights might be successfully appropriated for such a praxis. This superb anthology addresses the critical need for material directly addressing the politics and ethics implied by Merleau-Ponty's later works. (shrink)

É com grande prazer que realizo este projeto. Não apenas por realizar um trabalho de um trabalho de amor para um amigo querido, Denis Guénoun, mas também por oferecer um presente para todos os anglófonos. Desde Sartre, não surgiu uma voz tão original no cenário francês. Guénoun escreve com autoridade em várias disciplinas, na grande tradição dos intelectuais franceses: filosofia, teatro, literatura, literatura de arte e literatura de arte; no entanto, ele escreve com a voz irreverente e poderosa irreverente e (...) poderosa necessária para chamar a atenção de especialistas em cada um desses campos. (shrink)

This book originally appeared in 1998 and recently has been reissued in paperback form. It appears in the Arguments of the Philosophers series at Routledge.

Ronald Sandler's ‘Climate change and ecosystem management’ provides a fine summary of reasons to modify our approach to ecosystem management given ‘rapid and uncertain ecological change’. We...

The potential negative impacts of biological pest control on non-target species have become the focus of a contentious debate. In this article, we use examples from both classical and augmentative biological control of fruit fly pests in Hawaii to address several important factors in assessing non-target risks of fruit fly parasitoids. Several fruit fly parasitoids have been introduced to Hawaii and contribute substantially to the reduction of pest populations in the state's farms and forests. However, an historical lack of host-specificity (...) testing of these parasitoids with non-target species has raised concerns about their impact on non-pest fruit flies, including some flies deliberately introduced for biological control of weeds and others that are endemic Hawaiian species. When developing protocols to assess risks of introduced fruit fly parasitoids, we need first to define an appropriate range of species against which host specificity should be tested. For assessing susceptibility of a non-target species to parasitoids, behavioral tests are as important as suitability tests. Experimental factors, such as host-exposure substrate, absence or presence of preferred hosts, and laboratory vs. natural conditions, are shown to affect the results of host-specificity tests and risk analysis. Still, assessing long-term, indirect ecological impacts of parasitoids and weighing potential risks and benefits in multiple dimensions (besides dollar values) remains a challenge to environmentalists, conservationists, applied ecologists, and biocontrol practitioners. (shrink)

Some species face extinction if they are unable to keep pace with climate change. Yet proposals to assist threatened species’ poleward or uphill migration (‘assisted migration’) have caused significant controversy among conservationists, not least because assisted migration seems to threaten some values, even as it protects others. To date, however, analysis of ethical and value questions about assisted migration has largely remained abstract, removed from the ultimately pragmatic decision about whether or not to move a particular species. This paper uses (...) the case study of the whitebark pine, a keystone species of sub-alpine habitats in western North America, to consider how particular cases of assisted migration may be ethically approached. After taking into account the value of species, wildness, place, ecosystems, culture and sentient animals, we conclude that, on balance, there appear to be good reasons to move the whitebark pine. (shrink)

Our language and metaphors about environmental issues reflect and affect how we perceive and manage them. Discourse on invasive species is dominated by aggressive language of aliens and invasion, which contributes to the use of war-like metaphors to promote combative control. This language has been criticised for undermining scientific objectivity, misleading discourse, and restricting how invasive species are perceived and managed. Calls have been made for alternative metaphors that open up new management possibilities and reconnect with a deeper conservation ethic. (...) Here, we turn to Indigenous perspectives because they are increasingly recognised as offering important and novel voices in invasive species discourse. We examine how Australian Aboriginal elders and land managers (rangers) speak about ‘environmental weeds’ (the term used to describe invasive plants in Australia) and weed management. Based on qualitative research with five Aboriginal groups in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, our findings indicate that Aboriginal elders speak about weeds through passive, neutral language and prefer metaphors for weed management that focus on health, care and creation. We outline the influence that this language has for how rangers practice weed work and discuss its implications for the mainstream paradigm. (shrink)