The volume documents, and makes an original contribution to, an astonishing period in twentieth-century philosophy—the progress of Arne Naess's ecophilosophy from its inception to the present. It includes Naess's most crucial polemics with leading thinkers, drawn from sources as diverse as scholarly articles, correspondence, TV interviews and unpublished exchanges. The book testifies to the skeptical and self-correcting aspects of Naess's vision, which has deepened and broadened to include third world and feminist perspectives. Philosophical Dialogues is an essential addition to the (...) literature on environmental philosophy. (shrink)

Volume 52, Issue 9, August 2020, Page 923-927.

Volume 52, Issue 11, October 2020, Page 1109-1112.

This paper argues in favor of two related theses. First, due to a fundamental, biologically grounded world-openness, human culture is a biological imperative. As both biology and culture evolve historically, cultures rise and fall and the diversity of the human species develops. Second, in this historical process of rise and fall, abnormality plays a crucial role. From the perspective of a broader context traditionally addressed by speculative philosophies of history, the so-called mental disorders may be seen as entailing particular functional (...) advantages, and thus have a great impact on the course of human history. Nowadays, however, we live under a threat of cultural uniformity. While the diversity of the human species is cherished at the political level, it is being slowly eradicated through medical means. This paradox is a dangerous feature of contemporary globalized society that can lead to highly problematic consequences. (shrink)

Volume 52, Issue 13, December 2020, Page 1347-1357.

We introduce a new sheaf-theoretic construction called the ideal completion of a category and investigate its logical properties. We show that it satisfies the axioms for a category of classes in the sense of Joyal and Moerdijk [17], so that the tools of algebraic set theory can be applied to produce models of various elementary set theories. These results are then used to prove the conservativity of different set theories over various classical and constructive type theories.

Back in the bad old days, it was easy enough to spot non-cognitivists. They pressed radical doctrines with considerable bravado. Intoxicated by the apparent implications of logical positivism, early noncognitivsts would say things like, "in saying that a certain type of action is right or wrong, I am not making any factual statement..." (Ayer 1936: 107) Like most rebellious youths, non-cognitivism eventually grew up. Later non-cognitivists developed the position into a more subtle doctrine, no longer committed to the revisionary doctrines (...) associated with its forefathers. For example, Simon Blackburn has undertaken the "quasi-realist" project of showing how a non-cognitivist can "earn" the right to the seemingly realist discourse on a less metaphysically controversial and semantically implausible basis by giving a non-cognitivist analysis of realist-sounding semantics and pragmatics (Blackburn 1993). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:372 BOOK REVIEWS This understanding, moreover, gives ontological validity to the communication of idioms, which Morris surprisingly sees as accomplishing nothing but" muddying the water" (p. 49). As God, the Son is omniscient, immutable, all-powerful, etc., but in his new mode of existence as man, he is truly ignorant, passible, and limited. Existing as man, the Son experiences all that pertains to historioolly conditioned humanity. In the Incarnation the (...) "·who", the person, remains the same, but the manner of the experience of the " Who " is distinctly different-divine and human-without confusion, change, division, or separation. The mystery obviously remains, but it is meaningful and coherent. (For a more complete presentation of these arguments see the author's : Does God Change? : The Word's Becoming in the Incarnation, Still River: St. Bede's, 1985). As stated at the outset, Morris presents a thorough and provocative study which should be read and studied by scholars. While he aptly critiques his opponents, he fails to challenge their understanding of the incarnational notion of "become" and the ensuing union. Rather, he himself presupposes that the Incarnation implies a compositional union of natures which in turn leads to an unresolvable incompatibility between the divine and human attributes in Christ. Morris may have been aided had he been more acquainted with the early Christological controversies and councils. Nevertheless, Morris has clearly raised many important contemporary Christological issues and has admirably attempted to provide answers which are faithful both to the Christian tradition and to human i~ea..'\On and logic. Mother of God Community, Washington, D.O. THOMAS WEINaNDY O.F.M., Cap. Community: A Trinity of Models. By FRANK G. KmKPATRICK. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1986. Pp. 248. Cloth $17.95; paper $10.95. In recent years the pathology of atomistic individualism has been variously described by the Council Fathers of Vahlcan II, liberationist and feminist theologians, Stanley Hauer.was, and countless other theological and secular critics. According to Frank Kirkpatrick, therapeutic intervention will not be effective in the long run unless it is based upon an alternative conceptual "model" of human oommunity. Of course, Kirkpa.tric.k has something specific in mind. Not just any alternative will do. Marxian models of human association, for example, are prone to BOOK REVIEWS 373 totalitarianism and the denial of proper individuality. Thus, he offers what he calls "the mutual/personal model of community" as "a substantial grounding for a Christian vision of community congruent with liberationist and feminist concerns " (vii). Western culture has generated a welter of perspectives on the nature and ground of human association. Within this motley, Kirkpatrick discerns three models of oommunity which have shaped Western social philosophy and religious thought. The book de~crihes these traditional models by identifying their controlling metaphors, accounts of human nature and its fulfillment, and the social, economic, and political practices and institutions they undergird. The author appraises the strengths and weaknesses of the models and attempts to reconcile their positive features within the Christian vision of Koinonia. The first model is "the atomistic/contractarian" wherein persons are regarded as "independent atoms rationally contracting with each other for the terms of their enforced relationship" (2). Kirkpatrick locates its sources in the thought of Hobbes, Locke, Bentham, James Mill, Adam Smith, and Rousseau. Observing that the individualism of this tradition has always flourished in America, Kirkpatrick surveys some of its c001temporary expressions in the work of George Gilder, F. A. Hayek, Michael N·ovak, Robert Nozick, and John Rawls. The fruits of the atomistic/ contracta.rian model are, to Kirkpatrick's taste, mostly bad-isolation, alienation, oppression, injustice-and are ineongruent with Christian Koinonia. His second model, " the organic/functional," views persons as "organs, interdependent and functionally related to each other within a larger organism" (2). Conceived by Edmund Burke, this model became fully formed and viable in the thought of Hegel and Marx, and was instrumental in the analyses of sociologists such as Ferdinand Tonnies and Charles H. Cooley. Kirkpatrick is troubled by this model's tendency to view human relationships exhaustively in terms of co-operativ.e function. He worries that there is an insufficient" sense of individual difference and self-identity to... (shrink)

This paper, based on an invited Thesis Eleven presentation (8 August 2019), provides a ‘map of technopolitics’ that springs from an investigation of the theoretical notion of technological convergence adopted by the US National Science Foundation, signaling a new paradigm of ‘nano-bio-info-cogno’ (NBIC) technologies. This integration at the nano-level is expected to drive the next wave of scientific research, technology and knowledge economy. The paper explores the concept of ‘technopolitics’ by investigating the links between Wittgenstein’s anti-scientism and Lyotard’s ‘technoscience’, reviewing (...) the history of the notion in the work of the Belgium philosopher Gilbert Hottois. The ‘deep convergence’ representing a new technoscientific synergy is the product of long-term trends of ‘bioinformational capitalism’ that harnesses the twin forces of information and genetic sciences that coalesce in the least mature ‘cognosciences’ in their application to education and research. The map of technopolitics systematically identifies the political relations between Big Tech and ‘new digital publics’ to reveal that the new paradigm is based on the supreme value of cognitive efficiency. There are a closely-knit cluster of concerns that frame a map of political issues about the fifth-generation technological impacts on human beings, their bodies and minds, and public institutions, not least the logic of the distribution and ownership of data, information and knowledge, and its effects on democracy. (shrink)

Viral modernity is a concept based upon the nature of viruses, the ancient and critical role they play in evolution and culture, and the basic application to understanding the role of information and forms of bioinformation in the social world. The concept draws a close association between viral biology on the one hand, and information science on the other – it is an illustration and prime example of bioinformationalism that brings together two of the most powerful forces that now drive (...) cultural evolution. The concept of viral modernity applies to viral technologies, codes and ecosystems in information, publishing, education and emerging knowledge systems. This paper traces the relationship between epidemics, quarantine, and public health management and outlines elements of viral-digital philosophy based on the fusion of living and technological systems. We discuss Covid-19 as a ‘bioinformationalist’ response that represents historically unprecedented level of sharing information from the sequencing of the genome to testing for a vaccination. Finally, we look at the US response to Covid-19 through the lens of infodemics and post-truth. The paper is followed by three open reviews, which further refine its conclusions as they relate to philosophy and the notion of the virus as Pharmakon. (shrink)

The human mind has proven uniquely capable of unraveling untold mysteries, and yet, the mind is fundamentally challenged when it turns back on itself to ask what it itself is. How do we conceive of mind in this postmodern world; how can we use philosophical anthropology to understand mind and its functions? While philosophers and social scientists have made important contributions to our understanding of mind, existing theories are insufficient for penetrating the complexities of mind in the twenty-first century. Mind (...) Unmasked: A Political Phenomenology of Consciousness draws on twentieth-century philosophies of consciousness to explain the phenomenon of mind in the broadest sense of the word. Michael A. Weinstein and Timothy M. Yetman develop a thought provoking discourse that moves beyond the nature of the human experience of mind at both the individual and interpersonal levels and present a meditation on life in the contemporary world of global mass-mediated human culture. (shrink)

Volume 52, Issue 10, September 2020, Page 1016-1022.

The paper introduces a Special Issue of Interaction Studies which includes 21 papers based on presentations and discussion at a workshop entitled “How the Brain Got Language: Towards a New Road Map.” Unifying themes include the comparative study of brain, behavior and communication in monkeys, apes and humans, and an EvoDevoSocio framework for approaching biological and cultural evolution within a shared perspective. The final article of the special issue builds on the previous papers to present “The Comparative Neuroprimatology 2018 Road (...) Map for Research on How the Brain Got Language.”. (shrink)

Educational philosophies of self-cultivation as the foundation and cultural ethos for education have a strong and historically effective tradition stretching back to antiquity in the classical ‘cra...

I American Philosophy as a Form of Modern Philosophy The essence of modern philosophy is the expression of an image of human existence and of its major ...

Last Friday, in the big light of last Friday night,We drove home from Cornwall to Hartford, late.It was not a night blown at a glassworks in ViennaOr Venice, motionless, gathering time and dust.The...

One way of looking at conspiracy is to consider it a deliberately enhanced political weapon cultivated by those who push ‘fake news’ in a post-truth media environment. Thus, the story that Obama’s...

Michael A. Rosenthal - Spinoza's Theologico-Political Treatise: Exploring 'The Will of God' - Journal of the History of Philosophy 45:2 Journal of the History of Philosophy 45.2 334-335 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by Michael A. Rosenthal University of Washington, Seattle Theo Verbeek. Spinoza's Theologico-Political Treatise: Exploring 'The Will of God'. Aldershot, UK-Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003. Pp. 224. Cloth, $99.95. Theo Verbeek, an eminent historian of Dutch Cartesianism, uses his considerable knowledge of the philosophical and political (...) context to examine with.. (shrink)

In 1903 the Cody Road opened, leading travelers from Cody, Wyoming, to Yellowstone National Park. Cheyenne photographer J. E. Stimson traveled the route during its first week in existence, documenting the road for the state of Wyoming's contribution to the 1904 World's Fair. His images of now-famous landmarks like Cedar Mountain, the Shoshone River, the Holy City, Chimney Rock, Sylvan Pass, and Sylvan Lake are some of the earliest existing photographs of the route. In 2008, 105 years later, Michael (...) Amundson traveled the same road, carefully duplicating Stimson's iconic original photographs. In Passage to Wonderland, these images are paired side by side and accompanied by a detailed explanation of the land and history depicted. Amundson examines the physical changes along "the most scenic fifty miles in America" and explores the cultural and natural history behind them. This careful analysis of the paired images make Passage to Wonderland more than a "then and now" photography book--it is a unique exploration of the interconnectedness between the Old West and the New West. It will be a wonderful companion for those touring the Cody Road as well as those armchair tourists who can follow the road on Google Earth using the provided GPS coordinates. The University Press of Colorado gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University toward the publication of this book. (shrink)

The pseudo-Aristotelian Mechanical Problems is the earliest known ancient Greek text on mechanics, principally concerned with the explanation of a variety of mechanical phenomena using a particular construal of the principle of the lever. In the introduction, the author (thought to be an early Peripatetic) quotes the tragic poet Antiphon to summarise a discussion of the techne-physis (art-nature) relationship and the status of mechanics as a techne. I argue that this citation of a poet is an Aristotelian cultural signature, intended (...) to guide its reader(s) towards a better understanding of the nature of mechanics as expounded in the Mechanical Problems. By analysing several instances where Aristotle cites Antiphon (as well as other tragic poets) in the Aristotelian corpus, I propose that both the author of the Mechanical Problems and Aristotle use poets for the purpose of persuasion. This is in turn explained by understanding the homologous relationship between mechanics-as-techne (according to the author of the Mechanical Problems) and poetics-as-techne (according to Aristotle) in terms of their shared status as poietike techne (productive art) and claims to universal knowledge. A final facet of the proposed relationship between mechanics and poetry is hypothesised on the grounds of their mimetic nature. (shrink)

In Book 2 of The Peloponnesian War, the ancient Greek historian Thucydides describes the Plague of Athens which killed an estimated 75,000 people in 430 BC, the second year of the war. Thucydides i...

In this article I argue that the four guiding principles of medical ethics—autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice—reflect the values of western culture, but do not necessarily apply outside of it. Western medical practitioners faced with the care of nonwestern patients need to examine their own prejudices in order to accept, not merely tolerate, other values. Acceptance of the other requires that the doctor welcome the patient as one welcomes a guest, openly and equally, with a willingness to listen and to (...) be changed by the encounter. It is through the nurture of trusting relationships that ethical dilemmas in clinical medicine may be resolved, without recourse to the colonial moral hegemony of the principlist approach. (shrink)

In Wyoming Revisited, Michael A. Amundson uses the power of rephotography to show how landscapes across the state have endured over the last century. Three sets of photographs—the original black-and-white photographs taken by famed Wyoming photographer Joseph E. Stimson more than a century ago, repeat black-and-white images taken by Amundson in the 1980s, and a third view in color taken by the author in 2007–2008—are accompanied by captions explaining the history and importance of each site as well as information (...) on the process of repeat photographic fieldwork. The 117 locations feature street views of Wyoming towns and cities, as well as views from the state's famous natural landmarks like Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park, Devil's Tower National Monument, Hot Springs State Park, and Big Horn and Shoshone National Forests. In addition, Amundson provides six in-depth essays that explore the life of Joseph E. Stimson, the rephotographic process and how it has evolved, and how repeat photography can be used to understand history, landscape, historic preservation, and globalization. Wyoming Revisited highlights the historic evolution of the American West over the past century and showcases the significant changes that have occurred over the past twenty-five years. This book will appeal to photographers, historians of the American West, and anyone interested in Wyoming's history or landscape. The publication of this book is supported in part by the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund. (shrink)