This article contains four essays from the Anarres Project, a forum for conversations, ideas, and initiatives that promote a future free of domination, exploitation, oppression, war, and empire. In the spirit of philosophy in the contemporary world, the selection includes recent work on the pandemic and related struggles for justice in the past year. An introduction to the project is included.

Bioethics, once a four-letter word in the private sector, is now an integral part of the decisionmaking process of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. And bioethicists, once confined to the classroom and limited to abstract, philosophical discussions about what is right and wrong in medicine and medical research, now play an important role in the practical implementation of ethical boundaries. Bioethicists increasingly are hired by biomedical companies as consultants to highlight and help resolve complex ethical issues that arise in the companies’ (...) normal business practices. Whether motivated by profit, reputation, or a genuine desire to act morally, these companies are willing to pay bioethicists substantial consultation fees for their “expert” opinions. This fairly recent phenomenon has caused some to be concerned about the potential for bioethicists to encounter conflicts of interests. Specifically, many critics of this new relationship between bioethicists and the private sector “are concerned about the appropriateness of ethicists who should have broader interests, such as concerns about social justice, serving clients whose primary interest is profit-maximizing.”. (shrink)

A collection of essays written over the years by Frederick Sontag, American Life addresses various ethical, philosophical, and religious topics in American history and explores how these experiences can be used to face problems in the future.

This book contains reference to a number of Sontag's earlier articles on Becker. Becker won the Pulitzer Prize for writing The Denial of Death. His psychological/anthropological writings examined human nature and its tendency to religion. He proposed a self-made «hero religion», but his critique of the assumptions of modern social science equally make possible a return to traditional forms of religion: the return of the Gods.

"The Problems of Philosophy series is designed to familiarize the beginning student in philosophy with basic problem in each of the central fields of philosophy: Ethics, Political Philosophy, Metaphysics, Epistemology, Aesthetics, and the Philosophy of Religion. Each volume in the series emphasizes the contributions of eight or nine philosophers whose works are both important in their own right and representative of principal positions in philosophy."-Publisher.

Susan Sontag’s talk at the UNESCO meeting on which the French edition of Diogëne 201 was based has been replaced in this English edition of Diogenes 201 by extracts from her published work: her article ‘Looking At War’ in The New Yorker (December 2002).

In The Mysterious Presence, Frederick Sontag examines the presence of God as a presence never fully known. Sontag's presentation is similar to the observations of the Medieval mystics, who were aware of God's presence, yet never as direct or fully rational, but rather as a known, but never fully solved mystery. This is in contrast with Descartes and the rational tradition, which saw God as an obvious presence to the rational mind.

Similarities between existentialism and greek thought (particularly socrates and plato) that existentialism suggests "a way beyond" the traditional notions in greek ethical thought. This is done primarily by the stress which existentialism gives to the 'future', due to its emphasis on the notions of 'contingency' and 'freedom'.

That is the crucial question: Did God intend direct and final communication with us? There is little evidence that Jesus' appearance cleared anything up or gave us God directly. Wittgenstein, who wanted language to be clear, knew well enough that neither the Hebrew nor the Christian God's words could fall within his constructed linguistic net.

For some time it seemed as if Christianity itself required us to say that ‘God is in history’. Of course, even to speak of ‘history’ is to reveal a bias for eighteenth- and nineteenth-century forms of thought. But the justification for talking about the Christian God in this way is the doctrine of the incarnation. The centre of the Christian claim is that Jesus is God's representation in history, although we need not go all the way to a full trinitarian (...) interpretation of the relationship between God and Jesus. Thus, the issue is not so much whether God can appear or has appeared within, or entered into, human life as it is a question of what categories we use to represent this. To what degree is God related to the sphere of human events? Whatever our answer, we need periodically to re-examine the way we speak about God to be sure the forms we use have not become misleading. (shrink)

Is there 'truth' even if it is not certain and we cannot be certain about it? Sontag answers a resounding 'yes' in Uncertain Truth asserting that, in a skeptical time, truth is still possible but is not ours to possess with certainty. 'Truth' must therefore be reconceived in its philosophical perspective.

Modern philosophers have not seriously considered the imagination as an avenue to truth, partly because those philosophers, particularly the British empiricists, have been preoccupied with external observations.

We can, If the subject matter of psychology is just like the subject matter of the physical sciences, Or if the application of a common methodology is in itself sufficient to render universal results. The basic assumptions of any era hardly seem like assumptions at the time but more like basic facts. In addition, The conceit of the modern age was to think that they, At last, Stood face to face with truth as it is. Today we see how many (...) assumptions are involved in the project to build a scientific psychology. Like most assumptions from an earlier age, We now share few of them. (shrink)

. With the rise of the social sciences, it was expected they would replace philosophy in solving practical problems and improving the human condition. Ernest Becker's The Birth and Death of Meaning describes this project to cure humankind, but also points out the failures along the way. Nonetheless, a new psychology, based on a final science of humanity, still can accomplish this task. While Becker admits an incurable religious tendency in human nature, he counts on its being satisfied through a (...) “new heroism.” However, in light of past failures, it is worthwhile taking another look at religion as a source for “the rebirth of meaning.”. (shrink)

Speaking for the theology of the East, Masao Abe says: ‘I do not see the ontological ground on which being has priority over non-being’. Professor Abe is speaking of Tillich's assertion that there is an ‘ontological priority of being over nonbeing’, but Abe's question is more or less directed to the whole Western metaphysical tradition and illustrates the fundamental philosophical point at issue between the East and West. Nonbeing can be ruled out of consideration as Parmenides and Wittgenstein have done (...) . Or, like Plato and Tillich, being can be said to embrace both itself and nonbeing, even if this is not explained in detail very clearly. Yet the challenge of the East still stands: What embraces both being and nonbeing may not be ‘Being’ but ‘that which is neither being nor non-being’. If the East and the West are to meet metaphysically, we can no longer simply assume the priority of being over nonbeing. We must begin by considering the alternative of the East and then justify any choice between competing first principles by prior metaphysical argument. (shrink)

If "being" is usually defined in terms of something roughly equivalent to the Aristotelian categories, are we forced to say that whatever escapes classification by these categories is to that extent beyond or above being? For instance, if "perfection" is used outside of the categories which apply to particular beings and is attributed to a first principle of all things, is "perfection" in this application so different from "perfection" as it applies within the categories that the two applications share nothing (...) in common? (shrink)