Online research in philosophy

In response to Leroy Little Bear's description of the Blackfoot identity as rooted in place, the article articulates an ecological conception of value based in European thought that can be in close dialogue with the telling aboriginal phrase “I am the environment.” While important similarities are noted, especially the convergence of aboriginal and ecological conceptions of value on a critique of the assessment of value by commodity price, the difficulty of rooting value in Being within the European tradition contrasts with (...) the continuity of human, animal, and cosmic intelligence in aboriginal thought. (shrink)

Winthrop Pickard Bell (1884–1965), a Canadian who studied with Husserl in Göttingen from 1911 to 1914, was arrested after the outbreak of World War I and interred at Ruhleben Prison Camp for the duration of the war. In 1915 or 1916 he presented a lecture titled “Canadian Problems and Possibilities” to other internees at the prison camp. This is the first time Bell’s lecture has appeared in print. Even though the lecture was given to a general audience and thusmakes no (...) explicit reference to Husserl or phenomenology, it is a systematic phenomenological analysis of the national form of group belonging and, as such, makes a substantial contribution to phenomenological sociology and political science, grounding that contribution in phenomenological philosophy. Bell describes the essence of the nation as an organic spiritual unity that grows or develops, and is thus not a product of will, and which becomes a unity by surmounting its parts. This unity is instantiated in a given nation by tradition. The particular character of a nation’s tradition gives it a tendency to act in one way rather than another. (shrink)

Leslie Armour is the author of numerous books and essays on epistemology, metaphysics, logic, Canadian philosophy and Blaise Pascal, as well as on ethics, social and political philosophy, the history of philosophy (especially seventeenth-century philosophy) and social economics. A fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, he has worked as a reporter for The Vancouver Province, briefly as a sub-editor at Reuters News Agency, and for several years as a columnist and feature writer for London Express News and Feature Services. (...) He has taught at universities in Montana, California, Ohio and Ontario. Now a researchprofessor of philosophy at the Dominican University College, Ottawa, an emeritus professor at the University of Ottawa, and editor of the International Journal of Social Economics, he and his wife, Diana, divide their time between Ottawa and London, U.K. (shrink)

A strand of contemporary philosophy has turned from the traditional focus on universality toward conceptions of “one’s own,” “place,” and “particularity.” In the recovery of “place” and “Iocation,” no attempt has been made to distinguish betwen these terms nor to investigate their different implications even though there is an incipient distinction between them in Heidegger’s late work. This meditation on the relationship between place (Ort) and locality (Ortschaft) begins from Heidegger’s texts in which the distinction was made. The second part (...) follows the thought of location further. Third, the implication of this distinctionfor the task of thinking and its distinction from poetry is explored. In conclusion, some implicationsfor the interpretation and application of Heidegger’s work and for the place that a definition and defence of particularity and locality might have in contemporary philosophy are explored.Une certaine voie de la philosophie contemporaine a déplacé son attention traditionnelle portée à I’universeI pour se tourner vers des conceptions du “propre,” du “lieu,” du “particulier.” Dans la récupération des concepts de “lieu” et d’ “emplacement,” on n’a pas, jusqu’ ici, tenté de distinguer ces terms ou d'etudier leurs implications respectives, bien qu 'une distinction emerge dans I’oeuvre tardive de Heidegger. La présente méditation sur la relation entre lieu (Ort) et localité (Ortschaft) part du texte heideggérien dans lequel la distinction a été faite. Le seconde partie poursuit la pensée de la localité. La troisième sonde la portée de cette distinction pour la tâche de la pensée et la façon dont elle se démarque de la poésie. En conclusion, j’explore I’incidence qu ’une definition et une défense de la particularité et de la localité pourrait avoir sur I’interpretation et I’application de I’oeuvre de Heidegger en philosophie contemporaine. (shrink)

Recent paradigmatic shifts in favor of the 'discourse' approach in social theory are explored and debated.