Catastrophic risk raises questions that are not only of practical importance, but also of great philosophical interest, such as how to define catastrophe and what distinguishes catastrophic outcomes from non-catastrophic ones. Catastrophic risk also raises questions about how to rationally respond to such risks. How to rationally respond arguably partly depends on the severity of the uncertainty, for instance, whether quantitative probabilistic information is available, or whether only comparative likelihood information is available, or neither type of information. Finally, catastrophic (...) risk raises important ethical questions about what to do when catastrophe avoidance conflicts with equity promotion. (shrink)

Education about catastrophes often begins with, and at times even focuses on, passing down catastrophe memories. For this education, catastrophe memories that are unique to the survivors must be translated carefully to ensure that they can be understood by successors who may not have experienced a catastrophe themselves. This study elaborates on the structure of the translation of these memories between the survivors and successors. It also focuses on the educational significance of the practical application of such (...) translations. Section 1 describes the purpose of this study while Section 2 examines the reasons for the emphasis on passing down survivors’ memories in catastrophe education. Section 3 focuses on telling-listening exchanges while passing down these memories and examines the structure and characteristics of such exchanges. It was identified that it is imperative that these exchanges should communicate the experience that cannot be translated in words or is incommensurable. If both, the survivors and successors, are truthful to the incommensurability, and if they both dare to experience it, they will be able to find the potential and possibilities to transform human lives and societies while weaving together the narratives of catastrophe memories that would be transformed and generated endlessly. (shrink)

A Global Catastrophic Risk is one that has the potential to inflict serious damage to human well-being on a global scale. This book focuses on such risks arising from natural catastrophes, nuclear war, terrorism, biological weapons, totalitarianism, advanced nanotechnology, artificial intelligence and social collapse.

A subset of people with severe mental health conditions feels they are on the verge of losing control, even in the absence of external threats or triggers. Some go to extreme ends to avoid affective arousal and associated expectations of a possible, impending catastrophe. We have learned about such phenomenological, emotional challenges in a group of individuals with severe, composite mental health problems and psychosocial disabilities. These individuals have had long treatment histories in the mental health care system. They (...) have been encountered at a specialized inpatient ward offering exposure-based therapy that aims at restoring self-regulation and recovery. We describe the phenomenology of anxiety and fear presented by these service users, a fear we have coined existential catastrophe anxiety. We also suggest a set of underlying, interacting, psychological mechanisms that may give rise to ECa, before comparing ECa with three other constructs previously described in the literature—annihilation anxiety, ontological insecurity, and affect phobia. These comparisons show several similarities, but also unique qualities with ECa and its suggested underlying mechanisms. The conceptualization of ECa may aid clinicians in addressing extreme experiential turmoil and engage service users in empowering therapeutic projects. (shrink)

Dealing with memories of catastrophes is undoubtedly important for education. Yet, how is such an education possible? On which theoretical basis can we describe it? In this article, I build a bridg...

In this study we seek to determine whether catastrophic events lead to corporate charitable giving unrelated to levels of firm profitability. We examine the issue relative to the corporate philanthropic response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks of 2001. Based on a sample of 489 Fortune 500 companies, we find that differences in the extent of corporate contributions following 9/11 are positively and significantly associated with differences in firms' profitability. Further, while the degree of connection to the catastrophic event led to (...) higher levels of giving in comparison to the contributions of less connected firms, differences in the extent of philanthropy are still␣related to short-term profitability for the more connected firms. The study thus provides evidence suggesting that even in the wake of catastrophic events, corporate philanthropic giving is constrained by economic concerns. (shrink)

Catastrophe and Imagination explores fiction in America and England from 1870 to 1950, measuring the impact of the twentieth century's wars on the literary imagination. McCormick holds that the novel has a unique relationship to society, and defines this in relation to the many catastrophes of his era - wars, revolutions, and other outrages on the social order. After an initial survey of society in the novels of Jane Austen, Dickens, and Thackeray, to name only a few, he analyzes (...) what the novel is not, with reference to the work of Virginia Woolf, John Steinbeck, and D. H. Lawrence. (shrink)

Catastrophe Theory was developed in an attempt to provide a form of Mathematics particularly apt for applications in the biological sciences. It was claimed that while it could be applied in the more conventional physical way, it could also be applied in a new metaphysical way, derived from the Structuralism of Saussure in Linguistics and Lévi-Strauss in Anthropology.Since those early beginnings there have been many attempts to apply Catastrophe Theory to Biology, but these hopes cannot be said to (...) have been fully realised. (shrink)

Catastrophe insurance differs from regular insurance in that individual claims are correlated and insurers have to pay more clients at once, which creates a liquidity strain. In this paper, I show two related findings: first, that when customers know their claims are correlated, this correlation can cause positive-sloping demand at low prices, and second, that because of this, a catastrophe insurance market can fail. Market failure is a stable equilibrium, which provides a better understanding of the frequent failures (...) in catastrophe insurance markets. (shrink)

. Catastrophic times. Cultural Values: Vol. 2, No. 2-3, pp. 174-189.

With catastrophic events of «nature» like global warming, arguments emerge that insinuate an equivalence of vulnerability, responsibility or being affected by these catastrophes. Such an alleged equivalence when facing climate catastrophe is already visible, for example, in the notion of the «Anthropocene» itself, which obscures both causes and various vulnerabilities in a homogenized as well as universalized concept of humanity (anthropos). Taking such narratives as a starting point, the paper explores questions about the connection between catastrophe, temporality, and (...) history, following mainly Walter Benjamin, Dipesh Chakrabarty and Jean-Luc Nancy with the goal to provide (1) a critique of the concept «Anthropocene» on the basis of nonequivalence while retaining its key features to still grasp the catastrophic present, (2) an analysis of anthropocenic time and the chronical structure of catastrophe, (3) philosophical considerations on the intersection of catastrophe and history. (shrink)

Insurers draw on sophisticated models for the probability distributions over losses associated with catastrophic events that are required to price insurance policies. But prevailing pricing methods don’t factor in the ambiguity around model-based projections that derive from the relative paucity of data about extreme events. I argue however that most current theories of decision making under ambiguity only partially support a solution to the challenge that insurance decision makers face and propose an alternative approach that allows for decision making that (...) is responsive to both the evidential situation of the insurance decision maker and their attitude to ambiguity. (shrink)

My article provides a systematic interpretation of the transformation of capitalist society in the neo-liberal era as a form of what Karl Polanyi called ‘cultural catastrophe’. I substantiate this claim by drawing upon Erich Fromm’s theory of social character. Fromm’s notion of social character, I argue, offers a plausible, psychodynamic explanation of the processes of social change and the eventual class composition of neo-liberal society. I argue, further, that Fromm allows us to understand the psychosocial basis of the process (...) that Polanyi calls cultural catastrophe. This requires an elucidation of the major social forces of financialization and emancipation which, I argue, proved to be important formative factors in the emergence of neo-liberal society. The cultural catastrophe of neo-liberalism concerns the working class, whose prevailing social character has become misaligned with the new expectations and requirements of neo-liberal society. (shrink)

This book investigates how a number of influential philosophies arose out of catastrophes, such as wars, plagues, and earthquakes. Central to the project is an explanation of how these catastrophes led to the questioning of basic assumptions and the introduction of new ideas to make sense out of a chaotic and often unintelligible world.

Some basic mathematical facts pertaining to " Catastrophe Theory" are sketched. The alleged applications to the social sciences are studied. Three representative models, due to E.C. Zeeman, are described in detail, and critically analyzed. The models are found to be vaguely formulated, to be based on false hypotheses, to lead to few nontrivial predictions. Moreover, most of those predictions do not agree with reality. Finally, the only nontrivial mathematical result used in these models - Thom 's theorem - is (...) found to be incorrectly applied. It is concluded that no justification exists for the claim that Catastrophe Theory can be applied to the social sciences. (shrink)

People do not choose to suffer from catastrophic illnesses, but considerable human choice is involved in the ways in which the participants in the process treat and conduct research on these diseases. Catastrophic Diseases draws a powerful and humane portrait of the patients who suffer from these illnesses as well as of the physician-investigators who treat them, and describes the major pressures, conflicts, and decisions which confront all of them. By integrating a discussion of "facts" and "values," the authors highlight (...) the forces which affect new developments in medicine—such as kidney and heart transplants—and the controversial issues they generate. Katz and Capron explore these issues through the use of dual conceptual perspectives. Their study first examines and evaluates the authority which should be vested in each of the chief participants in the catastrophic disease process—the physician-investigator, the patient-subject and his relatives, the professionals, and the state. Challenging questions are raised concerning medical education, informed consent, and professional responsibility. The authors next explore how the roles and capacities of the participants vary not only according to the basic issues they face but also according to the point in decision-making at which these issues arise. The process of investigating and treating catastrophic diseases, the authors believe, can thus usefully be divided into three decision-making stages—the formulation of policy, the administration of research and therapy, and the review of the decisions and their consequences. In conclusion, Katz and Capron demonstrate the need for a variety of individuals and groups with diverse values to be involved in decision-making in a manner which will not unnecessarily impede the scientific investigation of these diseases. (shrink)

This book benefits from the emergence of bioethics as it has evolved from its clinical roots to address policy, politics, and social practice far removed from that origin. It situates terrorism and bioterrorism in the field of ethical inquiry. Finally, it treats the catastrophic event as a category or genre and so enables us to enrich inquiry by ranging from hurricane and flood to terrorist attack.

This article argues that Foucault’s account of the intersection between population, liberal economy, and biopolitics needs to be reconstructed in light of Malthus’ Essay on the Principle of Population. Taking Malthus into account brings to the fore how deeply the question of population is tied to a colonial hierarchy that differentiates between dangerous ‘savage’ and economic ‘civilized’ life. ‘Savage life’ is depicted as a catastrophic form of life, which uses resources in a non-economic way due to its forgetfulness of the (...) future. The article shows how this notion of ‘savage life’ broadens the concept of liberal economic governmentality. Most importantly, it highlights the role of passions and futurity for liberal governmentality. As the discussion of Malthus’ texts demonstrates, the passions of hope and fear assume a crucial role for engendering futurity in the economic subject. As will be shown, while the more ‘savage life’ is considered to be made governable through fear, the more civilized life is supposed to be allured by hope. The article points out the implication of this analysis for Foucault’s notion of biopolitics in relation to liberal economy. (shrink)

Systems evolve in order to adjust and survive. The paper’s contribution is that this evolvement is inadequate without an evolutionary telos. It is argued that without the presence of self-destruction in multiple levels of our existence and surroundings, our survival would have been impossible. This paper recognises an appreciation of auto-catastrophe at the cell level, in human attitudes (both as an individual and in societies), and extended to Earth and out to galaxies. Auto-Catastrophic Theory combines evolution with auto-catastrophic behaviours (...) and innovative machinery by offering new themes of understanding their merging such as (a) protogenic and deuterogenic auto-catastrophic processes, (b) protogenic and deuterogenic survival processes, and (c) ‘alive’, partially ‘alive’, and non-‘alive’ systems. The value of self-destruction relies on a numerical stability within a system and correlational relationships between systems. Auto-Catastrophic Theory provides novel justifications why artificial intelligence: (a) is crucial to overcome the extinction of humanity (via H+), (b) is crucial to offer indirect survival of humanity (by saving its history), and (c) is at the same time a threat for humanity. These novel justifications and themes, developed by combining evolution with catastrophe as well as innovative machinery, expand our knowledge of how best to handle fresh challenges ahead. (shrink)

Introduction: catastrophizing: a beginner's guide -- Leonardo's disasters -- Earthquakes of the mind -- Shakespeare's catastrophic "anything" -- The earthquake and the microscope -- Disaster before the sublime; or, Kant's catastrophes -- Afterword: catastrophizing in the age of climate change.

The aim of this article is to investigate around the life in the contemporary society, characterized by risks and catastrophes. What does mean to live fearing that in any moment a catastrophe could happen (a tsunami, an earthquake, a nuclear explosion)? Despite of the failure of science and public institutions in the prevention of the catastrophes, the question is the following: Can we use the catastrophe as a paradigm of the contemporary uncertain life, trying to mean it as (...) a theme of mediation? Can we use the catastrophe for developing a philosophy of the recognition of the other who has been involved in the same tragedy? (shrink)

A classification of the global catastrophic risks of AI is presented, along with a comprehensive list of previously identified risks. This classification allows the identification of several new risks. We show that at each level of AI’s intelligence power, separate types of possible catastrophes dominate. Our classification demonstrates that the field of AI risks is diverse, and includes many scenarios beyond the commonly discussed cases of a paperclip maximizer or robot-caused unemployment. Global catastrophic failure could happen at various levels of (...) AI development, namely, before it starts self-improvement, during its takeoff, when it uses various instruments to escape its initial confinement, or after it successfully takes over the world and starts to implement its goal system, which could be plainly unaligned, or feature-flawed friendliness. AI could also halt at later stages of its development either due to technical glitches or ontological problems. Overall, we identified around several dozen scenarios of AI-driven global catastrophe. The extent of this list illustrates that there is no one simple solution to the problem of AI safety, and that AI safety theory is complex and must be customized for each AI development level. (shrink)

Comment survivre à la vie? Car la vie finit mal, se passe mal aussi parfois, avec ruptures, chagrins, deuils, maladies, et mort. Comment traverser ces catastrophes? Avec l'aide de la foi, qui donne sens à ce qui n'est que souffrance? Mais qu'en est-il de l'athée? S'il veut être cohérent, il ne doit pas chercher à donner un sens à ces souffrances, à leur trouver une justification mais il ne peut faire fond que sur l'absurdité de la vie. Quelle fécondité trouver (...) aux vies abîmées? Comment penser la mort et la douleur? Comme ce qui est étranger à la vie, comme ce qui ne la concerne pas. Sans pour autant faire comme si cela n'était rien. Il faudrait donc tenir ensemble la réalité terrifiante du malheur et la valeur absolue de la vie, qui seule importe.Un essai de philosophie athée rigoureuse, qui pose la question essentielle : à quoi bon vivre? Introduction. Vivre au dehors. Idées pour la constitution d'une éthique athée Chapitre premier. Le pendule équivoque. Tomber malade, vivre debout Chapitre II. Expérience et misère de la mort Chapitre III. Vivre sans, vivre avec - après la mort Chapitre IV. Quelle tuile! Sur l'événement amoureux Chapitre V. Heureux qui comme David (Se faire son petit bonheur juif) Chapitre VI. Des petits et des grandsbouleversements La fin du pire? Remerciements. (shrink)

Jean-Pierre Dupuy a tenu pendant la pandémie un « journal de pensée » d'un genre spécial : il réagit moins aux événements que nous avons tous vécus depuis le mois de mars 2020 qu'à la manière dont ces événements ont été analysés, discutés. Il le fait à la lumière de sa contribution majeure à la pensée de la catastrophe développée dans un livre fameux et souvent mal compris, Pour un catastrophisme éclairé. Quand l'impossible est certain (Seuil, 2002 ; 2004). (...) Voici un livre de combat mû par la colère. La colère de voir des intellectuels relativiser la gravité de la pandémie en cours, s'engager dans une critique virulente de sociétés et de gouvernants qu'ils jugent obsédés par la « protection de la vie », au point de sacrifier l'avenir du monde, de l'économie et des libertés publiques. Avec rigueur et détermination, Jean-Pierre Dupuy leur répond et met au jour les erreurs logiques - et scientifiques - qui sous-tendent ces raisonnements, et propose par là même une réflexion passionnante et passionnée sur la mort et la vie au temps de la pandémie."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

The film The Survivalist portrays a dystopic world, wherein the most valuable asset is seeds. The 'seeds' metaphor applies both in the context of agriculture and in that of fecundity. The Survivalist's hostile hospitality toward a pair of nomads -- a mother and her daughter -- results in the pregnancy of the latter. In the last raid on his compound, the Survivalist allows the daughter to escape at the expense of his own life. This sacrifice manifests a severe critique against (...) the preference given today to the well-being of the individual at the expense of the survival of the species. (shrink)

Recent progress in artificial intelligence (AI) has drawn attention to the technology’s transformative potential, including what some see as its prospects for causing large-scale harm. We review two influential arguments purporting to show how AI could pose catastrophic risks. The first argument — the Problem of Power-Seeking — claims that, under certain assumptions, advanced AI systems are likely to engage in dangerous power-seeking behavior in pursuit of their goals. We review reasons for thinking that AI systems might seek power, that (...) they might obtain it, that this could lead to catastrophe, and that we might build and deploy such systems anyway. The second argument claims that the development of human-level AI will unlock rapid further progress, culminating in AI systems far more capable than any human — this is the Singularity Hypothesis. Power-seeking behavior on the part of such systems might be particularly dangerous. We discuss a variety of objections to both arguments and conclude by assessing the state of the debate. (shrink)

The huge change brought about by the corona virus pandemic contains some structural characteristics that define it as a catastrophe. The text explores and offers an outline of a possible analysis of some of the logical and normative features of this phenomenon.

Le conflit d’interprétation, associé aux aspects de la santé, de la contamination radioactive et des indemnisations, est toujours d’actualité dans le monde. Dans cette analyse, l’auteure avance que les expériences subjectives apportées par les récits construits par les survivants du désastre de Goiânia, au Brésil, défient les identités et les frontières définies par la biomédecine pour encadrer cette catastrophe.

With the significant disconnect between the collective aim of limiting warming to well below 2°C and the current means proposed to achieve such an aim, the goal of this paper is to offer a moral assessment of prominent alternatives to current international climate policy. To do so, we’ll outline five different policy routes that could potentially bring the means and goal in line. Those five policy routes are: (1) exceed 2°C; (2) limit warming to less than 2°C by economic de-growth; (...) (3) limit warming to less than 2°C by traditional mitigation only; (4) limit warming to less than 2°C by traditional mitigation and widespread deployment of Negative Emissions Technologies (NETs); and (5) limit warming to less than 2°C by traditional mitigation, NETs, and Solar Radiation Management as a fallback. In assessing these five policy routes, we rely primarily upon two moral considerations: the avoidance of catastrophic climate change and the right to sustainable development. We’ll conclude that we should continue to aim at the two-degree target, and that to get there we should use aggressive mitigation, pursue the deployment of NETs, and continue to research SRM. (shrink)

Taking its departure from The Differend’s analysis of Auschwitz as a sign for the evental character of history, I argue that the looming ecological disaster we now face reveals both the continuing relevance and limits of Lyotard’s thought. While the form of political agency of the catastrophe to come involves a differend, this differend cannot be attached to a proper name, however problematic its mode of signification. This, however, suggests the even greater relevance of Lyotard’s treatment, in the conclusion (...) of The Differend, of capitalism in terms of temporal contradiction, as well as his theorization of oikos and ecology in subsequent works, where he distinguishes between the economic and the ecological. This distinction, I conclude, is rendered problematic by the catastrophe to come, as indeed is any attempt to draw an absolute distinction between “philosophical politics” and mere technocratic management or even to exclude speculation from the heart of philosophy. (shrink)

A collection of essays that takes stock of the current impact of the image and imagination of the catastrophe in art, science and philosophy.

Evoking the contemporary Zeitgeist of looming ecological, political and economic disaster, a distinguished group of thinkers invite a compelling reconsideration of the ways we, as representing subjects, might be more deeply implicated in catastrophic events than we ordinarily imagine"--Provided by publisher.

_Offers a striking new reading of Agamben’s political thought and its implications for political action in the present._.

Catastrophe theory has been sharply criticized because it does not seem to have practical applications nor does it seem to allow us to increase our power over Nature. I want to rehabilitate the theory by foregoing the controversy raised by scientists about its practical efficiency. After a short exposition of the theory's mathematical formalism and a detailed analysis of the main objections that have been raised against it, I argue that theory is not only to be judged on its (...) practical results, which are in fact limited, but also on its epistemological and philosophical implications. Catastrophe theory indeed represents a real revolution in science: it announces the coming of a more theoretical, less practical, science, having more to do with understanding reality than with acting on it, and, from that point of view, it may be considered as the modern philosophy of Nature. (shrink)

Paper originally prepared for the International Summit on "Deomcracy, Terrorism and Security," Madrid, 8-11 March 2005.

This paper examines how drawing classes can contribute to moral education in primary schools. This paper uses class observation, interviews with teachers and students, and analysis of students’ wor...

In Ontological Catastrophe, Joseph Carew takes up the central question guiding Slavoj Žižek’s philosophy: How could something like phenomenal reality emerge out of the meaninglessness of the Real? Carefully reconstructing and expanding upon his controversial reactualization of German Idealism, Carew argues that Žižek offers us an original, but perhaps terrifying, response: experience is possible only if we presuppose a prior moment of breakdown as the ontogenetic basis of subjectivity. Drawing upon resources found in Žižek, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and post-Kantian philosophy, (...) Carew thus develops a new critical metaphysics—a metaphysics which is a variation upon the late German Idealist theme of balancing system and freedom, realism and idealism, in a single, self-reflexive theoretical construct—that challenges our understanding of nature, culture, and the ultimate structure of reality. (shrink)

Natural Catastrophe is an original contribution to the growing field of the environmental humanities. It offers an unorthodox reckoning with the narrative of natural catastrophe that sustains both environmental and neoliberal solutions to the problem of climate change and calls for a return to the radical experiments in political thought seen in the nineteenth century.’ Janet Stewart, Durham University A lively introduction to the social and political dimensions of the current climate change and sustainability debates The voices proclaiming (...) that climate change is a natural catastrophe grow ever more strident. This book offers the persuasive alternative argument that climate change is in fact a profoundly political phenomenon and a symptom of neoliberal governance. Viewing it as such helps us to understand how, across wealthy liberal democracies, environmental concern has increasingly been framed as a consumer responsibility issue rather than as a matter of structural social–political transformation. Thinking of a world truly beyond climate change requires us to reimagine the state beyond its current neoliberal configuration. This book argues that, in order to achieve this, environmental politics in the West needs to renew the Marxist challenge to the global market’s benign production of social utility and construct a new non-apocalyptic politics of nature. (shrink)

_Lectures on ecstatic temporality and on Heidegger’s political legacy._.

In Catastrophic Times: Resisting the Coming Barbarism (2015) offers a welcome intervention into the current state of global political impasse and ecological catastrophe. Less a cautionary tale or a series of political injunctions, In Catastrophic Times sets out a clear account of how the ‘cold panic’ induced by looming ecological crises such as climate change is actively produced by the managers of the status quo – those Stengers calls ‘Guardians’. Stengers claims it is the convergence of governance without legitimacy (...) with enclosed knowledges and the cult of expertise that has produced a general state of panicked political impotence. Against this mode of governance, Stengers offers a series of tactical experiments, from paying attention as intervention to acts of scientific commoning, articulated through what she calls the GMO event, that seek to seize environmental issues and sociotechnical problems as political questions in order to resist the devolution of modernity into a global social apartheid state. (shrink)