New forms of river management have emerged following widespread recognition of the environmental damage caused by attempts to harness and control rivers for navigation, consumptive water use and power generation. A dominant top-down engineering-based paradigm is being challenged by catchment-framed, ecosystem-based approaches which claim to place greater emphasis on participation and equity. However, there has been limited attention given to examining these claims, and principles of justice are frequently left unarticulated or embedded in what is still presented as an essentially (...) technical, outcome-driven management process. This paper examines the contribution of an environmental justice framework in articulating and explicating the ethical and political nature of decision making in stream rehabilitation practice. Particular attention is given to distributive, procedural and relational elements of justice, and to the limitations of an anthropocentric approach. A broader-based ecological justice framework is proposed. Several key issues in applying this framework are discussed, including the need for 'situated justice', for multiple voices to be heard, for dealing with unity and diversity at the catchment scales, and in integrating knowledge through genuine transdisciplinary research and practice. (shrink)
While considerable ink has been spilt over the rejection of idealism by Bertrand Russell and G.E. Moore at the end of the 19th Century, relatively little attention has been directed at Russell’s A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz, a work written in the early stages of Russell’s philosophical struggles with the metaphysics of Bradley, Bosanquet, and others. Though a sustained investigation of that work would be one of considerable scope, here I reconstruct and develop a two-pronged argument from (...) the Philosophy of Leibniz that Russell fancied—as late as 1907—to be the downfall of the traditional category of substance. Here, I suggest, one can begin to see Russell’s own reasons—arguments largely independent of Moore—for the abandonment of idealism. Leibniz, no less than Bradley, adhered to an antiquated variety of logic: what Russell refers to as the subject-predicate doctrine of logic. Uniting this doctrine with a metaphysical principle of independence—that a substance is prior to and distinct from its properties—Russell is able to demonstrate that neither a substance pluralism nor a substance monism can be consistently maintained. As a result, Russell alleges that the metaphysics of both Leibniz and Bradley has been undermined as ultimately incoherent. Russell’s remedy for this incoherence is the postulation of a bundle theory of substance, such that the category of “substance” reduces to the most basic entities—properties. (shrink)
The ideology of consumption and the imperative of consumer choice have washed across the globe. In today's developed economies there is an ever-increasing amount of buying, amidst an ever-increasing amount of purchase options, amidst an ever-increasing amount of stress, amidst an ever-decreasing amount of discretionary time. This brief essay reviews research suggesting, for example, that hyperchoice confuses people and increases regret, that hyperchoice is initially attractive but ultimately unsatisfying, and that hyperchoice is psychologically draining. Future research is then discussed, including (...) how and why hyperchoice may have other toxic effects on people, including the degrading of moral emotions and behavior. (shrink)
The primary goal of this essay is to demonstrate that Leibniz’s objections to theological voluntarism are tightly connected to his overarching metaphysical system; a secondary goal is to show that his objections are not without some merit. Leibniz, it is argued, holds to strong versions of the imago dei doctrine, i.e., creatures are made in the image of God, and imitatio dei doctrine, i.e., creatures ought to imitate God. Consequently, God and creatures must possess similar structures of moral psychology, and (...) must be motivated in similar ways. Yet, Leibniz argues, a thoroughgoing voluntarism would obstruct both doctrines in philosophically unsettling ways, impeding the possibility for creatures to genuinely imitate God. (shrink)
Various formulations of the principle of simplicity in science are examined and rejected in favor of Goodman's proposal, the essence of which is to concentrate attention upon the predicates that form the extralogical basis of any given theory and to provide measures for comparing the relative structural simplicity of different sets of such predicates. The postulational basis of Goodman's method is set out and explained, together with some important amendments and additions, and a number of theorems are proved, with whose (...) aid the simplest theory to account for a certain corpus of scientific phenomena is readily determinable. (shrink)
The concept of parafraud is described as “illogical or improper behaviour towards other peoples’ views or publications,” and 19 different kinds of common practices coming under this heading are listed. Ways of combating it are suggested.
The origins of research projects, the duties of supervisors and research workers, the subjective elements in research and the difficulties of publication are reviewed, as a guide to the complexities of executing an honest research project. It is assumed that research carried out with maximal intellectual integrity will result in real advances.
This article attempts to determine how Leibniz might safeguard the simplicity of an individual substance (singular) while also retaining the view that causal powers (plural) are constitutive of said individual substance. I shall argue that causal powers are not to be understood as veritable parts of a substance in so far as such an account would render substances as unnecessarily complex. Instead, my proposal is that sense can be made of Leibniz’s metaphysical picture by appeal to truthmakers. In order to (...) develop my argument I critically examine (a) Leibniz’s revival of the scholastic notion of substantial form, (b) his theory of accidents, and (c) his account of metaphysical predication, and argue that an application of truthmaker theory can satisfy each in accordance with his simplicity requirement on individual substances. (shrink)
: Drawing Wittgenstein's and Irigaray's philosophies into conversation might help resolve certain misunderstandings that have so far hampered both the reception of Irigaray's work and the development of feminist praxis in general. A Wittgensteinian reading of Irigaray can furnish an anti-essentialist conception of "woman" that retains the theoretical and political specificity feminism requires while dispelling charges that Irigaray's attempt to delineate a "feminine" language is either groundlessly utopian or entails a biological essentialism.
In the wake of much previous work on Gilles Deleuze's relations to other thinkers (including Bergson, Spinoza and Leibniz), his relation to Kant is now of great and active interest and a thriving area of research. In the context of the wider debate between 'naturalism' and 'transcendental philosophy', the implicit dispute between Deleuze's 'transcendental empiricism' and Kant's 'transcendental idealism' is of prime philosophical concern. -/- Bringing together the work of international experts from both Deleuze scholarship and Kant scholarship, Thinking Between (...) Deleuze and Kant addresses explicitly the varied and various connections between these two great European philosophers, providing key material for understanding the central philosophical problems in the wider 'naturalism/ transcendental philosophy' debate. The book reflects an area of great current interest in Deleuze Studies and initiates an ongoing interest in Deleuze within Kant scholarship. The contributors are Mick Bowles, Levi R. Bryant, Patricia Farrell, Christian Kerslake, Matt Lee, Michael J. Olson, Henry Somers-Hall and Edward Willatt. (shrink)
If, as Lefebvre argues, every society produces its own social space, then modernity might be characterized by that (anti-)social and instrumental space epitomized and idealized in Le Corbusier's writings. This repetitively patterned space consumes and regulates the differences between places and people; it encapsulates a normalizing morality that seeks to reduce all differences to an economic order of the Same. Lefebvre's dialectical conceptualization of 'difference' can both help explain the operation of this (im)moral landscape and offer the possibility of alternative (...) post-modern social spaces that might produce and respect Otherness. In this sense Lefebvre's work is an incipient 'difference ethics'. (shrink)
The ecological crisis is confronting humanity with a need to recognize the interconnectedness of all life, and the Akashic Field as formulated by Ervin Laszlo (2004a) has identified how a universal information field connects humans to a greater transpersonal consciousness. The Akashic Field could provide humanity with a focus to deepen its understanding of a holistic view of life. The global crisis will confront human beings with the need to develop their transpersonal potential and spiritual intelligence, which has the potential (...) to contribute to an ecological actualization of human beings' relationship to the world, and the development of a sustainable future. (shrink)
The global crisis is heralding change within collective consciousness and humanity will be challenged to transform behaviors to co-create a sustainable future. Ervin Laszlo's Akashic Field could inspire such an archetypal shift, as exemplified in C.G. Jung's individuation process. Jung's encounters with the archetypes from the collective unconscious led him to connect deeply with Akashic experiences, which resulted in him expressing his human potential through renewed ways of doing and being. Humanity has an opportunity to develop and integrate transpersonal consciousness (...) through engaging archetypal and Akashic experiences, which could inspire collective action for the co-creation of an improved future. (shrink)
Speculations After Freud confronts the dilemmas of contemporary psychoanalysis by bringing together some of the most influential and best known writers on psychoanalysis and culture. These advocates and critics of psychoanalysis, both institutional and theoretical, reveal the powerful role psychoanalytic speculation plays in all areas of culture. Psychoanalysis has played a pivotal role in challenging the modernist notions of rationality and selfhood. It offers an alternative means of examining how identity is engendered, yet its identity has come into question because (...) of multiple claims to its possession. This volume addresses the dilemmas that afflict contemporary psychoanalysis, transforms the terms in which psychoanalysis has to be seen and shows the portents in store as we enter a post-analytic age. Contributors: Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, Cornelius Castoriadis, James Hillman, Sarah Kofman, David Farrell Krell, Julia Kristeva, Alphonso Lingis, Nicholas Rand, William Richardson, Charles E. Scott, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Maria Torok. (shrink)
The question of environmental responsibility is addressed through comparisons between Hannah Arendt’s and Ulrich Beck’s accounts of the emergent and globally threatening risks associated with acting into nature. Both theorists have been extraordinarily influential in their respective fields but their insights, pointing toward the politicization of nature through human intervention, are rarely brought into conjunction. Important differences stem from Beck’s treatment of risks as systemic and unavoidable side effects of late modernity. Arendt, however, retains a more restrictive anthropogenic view of (...) political action which, while recognizing its unpredictable consequences for human (and nonhuman) others, includes a direct link between individually initiated acts and the taking of ethical responsibility. This latter account best explains the ethical motivations behind much environmental activism. (shrink)
It has become commonplace to interpret 'Easter Island' in terms of an environmental allegory, a Malthusian morality tale of the consequences of over-exploitation of limited natural resources. There are, however, ethical dangers in treating places and peoples allegorically, as moralized means (lessons) to satisfy others' edificatory ends. Allegory reductively appropriates the past, presenting a specific interpretation as 'given' (fixed) and exemplary, wrongly suggesting that meanings and morals, like islands, are there to be 'discovered' ready-formed. Gadamer's hermeneutics suggests an alternative understanding (...) which expresses something of the ethical ambiguities involved in giving meaning to the environmental history of Easter Island. (shrink)
Environmentalists often recount tales of recent extinctions in the form of an allegory of human moral failings. But such allegories install an instrumental relation to the past’s inhabitants, using them to carry moralistic messages. Taking the passenger pigeon as a case in point, I argue for a different, ethical relation to the past’s inhabitants that conserves something of the wonder and “strangeness of the Other.” What Walter Benjamin refers to as the “redemptive moment” sparks a recognition of the Other that (...) allows us to engage in heartfelt mourning for them, rather than falling into the repetitive self-absorption characteristic of Freudian melancholy. This redemptive moment changes forever our relations to the world around us. (shrink)
Modern Western thought and culture have envisaged their task in terms of a metaphorics, a metaphysics and a technics of 'enlightenment'. However, the ethical and environmental implications of this determination to dispel all shadows have become increasingly pernicious as modernity both extends and alters the conceptualization and employment of (a now artificial) light as a tool of discovery and control. Drawing on the work of Foucault and Benjamin amongst others, this paper seeks to illustrate, through a critical ethopoietics, the 'speculative (...) aporia' of contemporary society from the perspective of radical ecology. The world does not just reflect our own instrumental interests: it has an elusive, shadowy existence of its own that can impinge upon our ethical perceptions. (shrink)
The power and the promise of deep ecology is seen, by its supporters and detractors alike, to lie in its claims to speak on behalf of a natural world threatened by human excesses. Yet, to speak of trees as trees or nature as something worthy of respect in itself has appeared increasingly difficult in the light of social constructivist accounts of “nature.” Deep ecology has been loath to take constructivism’s insightsseriously, retreating into forms of biological objectivism and reductionism. Yet, deep (...) ecology actually has much in common with, and much to gain from, some varieties of constructivism and can add a new dimension to constructivism’s own critique of current ideologies. (shrink)
Did people in early modern Europe have a concept of an inner self? Carla Mazzio and Douglas Trevor have brought together an outstanding group of literary, cultural, and history scholars to answer this intriguing question. Through a synthesis of historicism and psychoanalytic criticism, the contributors explore the complicated, nuanced, and often surprising union of history and subjectivity in Europe centuries before psychoanalytic theory. Addressing such topics as "fetishes and Renaissances," "the cartographic unconscious," and "the topographic imaginary," these essays move beyond (...) the strict boundaries of historicism and psychoanalysis to carve out new histories of interiority in early modern Europe. Contributors: Ann Rosalind Jones, Peter Stallybrass, James R. Siemon, John Guillory, Eric Wilson, Karen Newman, Tom Conley, Jeffrey Masten, Carla Mazzio, Katharine Eisaman Maus, Jonathan Goldberg, Douglas Trevor, Kathryn Schwarz, David Hillman, Marjorie Garber. (shrink)
The pursuit of happiness is a long-enshrined tradition that has recently become the cornerstone of the American Positive Psychology movement. However, “happiness” is an over-worked and ambiguous word, which, it is argued, should be restricted and only used as the label for a brief emotional state that typically lasts a few seconds or minutes. The corollary proposal for positive psychology is that optimism is a preferable stance over pessimism or realism. Examples are presented both from psychology and economics that illustrate (...) the dangers of optimism, and in which better outcomes can occur with a pessimistic stance. A more sophisticated approach is then presented in which, in relation to well-being and quality of life, neither optimism nor pessimism is seen as inherently better than the other, but, rather, in which psychological flexibility may contribute optimally to health and well-being. (shrink)
Inspired by recent anti-roads protests in Britain, I attempt to articulate a radical environmental ethos and, at the same time, to produce a cogent moral analysis of the dialectic between environmental destruction and protection. In this analysis, voiced in terms of a spatial metaphoric, an “ethics of place,” I seek to subvert the hegemony of modernity’s formal systematization and codification of values whilestill conserving something of modernity’s critical heritage: to reconstitute ethics in order to counter the current enclosure of the (...) moral field within economistic and legal bureaucratic frameworks and institutions. (shrink)
To study the interaction of forces that produce chest wall motion, we propose a model based on the lever system of Hillman and Finucane (J Appl Physiol 63(3):951–961, 1987 ) and introduce some dynamic properties of the respiratory system. The passive elements (rib cage and abdomen) are considered as elastic compartments linked to the open air via a resistive tube, an image of airways. The respiratory muscles (active) force is applied to both compartments. Parameters of the model are identified (...) in using experimental data of airflow signal measured by pneumotachography and rib cage and abdomen signals measured by respiratory inductive plethysmography on eleven healthy volunteers in five conditions: at rest and with four level of added loads. A breath by breath analysis showed, whatever the individual and the condition are, that there are several breaths on which the airflow simulated by our model is well fitted to the airflow measured by pneumotachography as estimated by a determination coefficient R 2 ≥ 0.70. This very simple model may well represent the behaviour of the chest wall and thus may be useful to interpret the relative motion of rib cage and abdomen during quiet breathing. (shrink)
The Hans Reichenbach Collection is part of the Archives of Twentieth Century Philosophy of Science, which also houses the Rudolf Carnap and Frank Ramsey Collections. The Archives of Twentieth Century Philosophy of Science is located in the Special Collections Department of the University of Pittsburgh's Hillman Library. In the past few years work on the recently acquired Hans Reichenbach Collection has resulted in a useful research source. Although the collection contains many notes, manuscripts, and recordings, efforts at organizing the (...) collection have centered on the wealth of correspondence contained in the collection. A great deal of this organizational work has now been completed, and this part of the collection is open to study by interested scholars. (shrink)
I draw critical parallels between Jim Cheney’s work and various aspects of modernism, which he ignores or misrepresents. I argue, first, that Cheney’s history of ideas is appallingly crude. He amalgamates all past Western philosophical traditions, irrespective of their disparate backgrounds and complex interrelationships, under the single heading, modern. Then he posits a radical epistemological break between a deluded modernism—characterized as foundationalist, essentialist, colonizing, and totalizing—and a contextual postmodernism. He seems unaware both of the complex genealogy of postmodernism and of (...) those aspects of modern traditions that prefigure his own thesis. Second, Cheney’s account of primitive peoples is both ethnocentric (though positively so) and inaccurate. Third, Cheneyreduces context or place to a concept of bioregionality. In this way, he reinstates a privileged foundationalism which, by his own definitions, makes his philosophy modernist. I develop these criticisms in order to suggest a less restricted contextual approach to environmental values. (shrink)
Concerns for the more-than-human world are consistently marginalized by dominant forms of philosophical and political humanism, characterized here by their unquestioning acceptance of human sovereignty over the world. A genuinely ecological political philosophy needs post-humanist concepts to begin articulating alternative notions of “ecological communities” as ethical and political, and not just biological realities. Drawing upon Jean-Luc Nancy’s concept of community, epharmosis, a largely defunct term of art in early plant ecology, can be reappropriated to signify the creative ethical/political/ecological interrelations that (...) together constitute ecological communities. (shrink)
The power and the promise of deep ecology is seen, by its supporters and detractors alike, to lie in its claims to speak on behalf of a natural world threatened by human excesses. Yet, to speak of trees as trees or nature as something worthy of respect in itself has appeared increasingly difficult in the light of social constructivist accounts of “nature.” Deep ecology has been loath to take constructivism’s insightsseriously, retreating into forms of biological objectivism and reductionism. Yet, deep (...) ecology actually has much in common with, and much to gain from, some varieties of constructivism and can add a new dimension to constructivism’s own critique of current ideologies. (shrink)
The natural world’s myriad differences from human beings, and its apparent indifference to human purposes and ends, are often regarded as problems an environmental ethics must overcome. Perhaps, though, ecological ethics might instead be re-envisaged as a form of other-directed concern that responds to just this situation. That is, the recognition of worldly (in)difference might actually be regarded as a precondition for, and opening on, any contemporary ethics, whether human or ecological. What is more, the task of ethics might be (...) regarded as one of conserving (at least some) such differences. The work of Iris Murdoch and the “difference ethics” of Emmanuel Levinas seem to offer possible ways to express such understandings. However, their ecological potential and theoretical limits, especially in terms oftheir metaphysical presuppositions, remain relatively under-explored. A closer examination of their work is presented in order to illustrate some of the possibilities and difficulties facing an ecological form of difference ethics. (shrink)
Then Wendy began to see that one didn't stay at two for the rest of one's life. Indeed two is the beginning of the end. The end is being grown-up. Once you get to twenty one or so, you can never be ungrown-up again. But Mrs. Darling did not tell this to Wendy. Between two and twenty one, there was lots of time for her to find out.
Drawing Wittgenstein's and Irigaray's philosophies into conversation might help resolve certain misunderstandings that have so far hampered both the reception of Irigaray's work and the development of feminist praxis in general. A Wittgensteinian reading of Irigaray can furnish an anti-essentialist conception of "woman" that retains the theoretical and political specificity feminism requires while dispelling charges that Irigaray's attempt to delineate a "feminine" language is either groundlessly utopian or entails a biological essentialism.
Praise for First Edition: `This book is highly recommended to a wide range of people as a clear and systematic introduction to phenomenological psychology... the book has set the stage for possible new colloquia between the phenomenological and other approaches in psychology' - Changes `As a trainee interested in matters existential, I have been put off in the past by the long-winded and confusing texts usually available in academic libraries. Thankfully, here is a text that remedies that situation... [it] provides (...) a readable and insightful account' - Clinical Psychology Forum 'Spinelli’s classic introduction to phenomenology should be essential reading on all person-centred, existential and humanistic trainings, and any other counselling or psychotherapy course which aims to help students develop an in-depth understanding of human lived-experience. This book is sure to remain a key text for many years to come' - Mick Cooper, Senior Lecturer in Counselling, University of Strathclyde 'This is by far the most monumental, erudite, comprehensive, authoritative case that Existentialism and Phenomenology (a) have a rightful place in the academy; (b) are tough-minded bodies of thought; (c) have rigorous scientific foundations; (d) bequeath a distinctive school of psychotherapy and counselling; and (e) are just as good as the more established systems of psychology' - Alvin R. Mahrer, Ph.D. University of Ottawa, Canada, Author of The Complete Guide To Experiential Psychotherapy 'This book’s rich insight into the lacunae of modern psychological thinking illustrates the contribution that existential phenomenology can make to founding a coherently mature Psychology that is both fully human(e) and responsibly ‘scientific’ in the best sense of that term' - Richard House, Ph.D., Magdalen Medical Practice, Norwich; Steiner Waldorf teacher. The Interpreted World, Second Edition, is a welcome introduction to phenomenological psychology, an area of psychology which has its roots in notoriously difficult philosophical literature. Writing in a highly accessible, jargon-free style, Ernesto Spinelli traces the philosophical origins of phenomenological theory and presents phenomenological perspectives on central topics in psychology - perception, social cognition and the self. He compares the phenomenological approach with other major contemporary psychological approaches, pointing up areas of divergence and convergence with these systems. He also examines implications of phenomenology for the precepts and process of psychotherapy. For the Second Edition, a new chapter on phenomenological research has been added in which the author focuses on the contribution of phenomenology in relation to contemporary scientific enquiry. He describes the methodology used in phenomenological research and illustrates the approach through an actual research study. The Interpreted World, Second Edition demystifies an exciting branch of psychology, making its insights available to all students of psychology, psychotherapy and counselling. (shrink)
Introduction.--The dynamic of science, by A. S. Russell.--Beyond knowledge, by J. Macmurray.--Moral adventure, by B. H. Streeter.--Finality in religion, by B. H. Streeter.--Objectivity in religion, by J. Macmurray.--Myth and reality, by Catherine M. Chilcott.
Introduction: the darkening spirit -- The degraded spirit in secular society -- Jung's advocacy of spiritual experience -- Jung and the prophetic life -- Jung's ambivalence toward religion -- Spiritual renewal from below -- The integration of the dark side -- The return of soul to the world: Jung and Hillman -- The problem of the spiritual in the reception of Jung -- Conclusion: Jung's contribution to a new religious vision.
