KANT ARGUES AT GREAT LENGTH in the Critique of Pure Reason that the existence of God cannot be demonstrated by means of theoretical reason. For after dividing all traditional theistic proofs into three different kinds—the ontological, the cosmological, and the physico-theological—Kant argues first that the cosmological and physico-theological implicitly assume the ontological argument and then that the ontological argument is necessarily fallacious. By restricting knowledge in this manner Kant notoriously makes room for faith, that is, in this case, for a (...) practical proof of the existence of God, which he develops in the Critique of Practical Reason. Kant’s reasons for rejecting theoretical proofs of the existence of God have received considerable attention. In particular, Kant’s objection to the ontological argument, namely that existence is not a real predicate, still seems relevant in contemporary philosophy of religion. What has not received much attention, however, is the relationship between Kant’s rejection of theistic proofs in his critical period and his views on the matter in his pre-critical period. For throughout his pre-critical period, but especially in his The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God, Kant believes that there is a theoretical proof of the existence of God. One would naturally expect Kant’s criticisms of theistic proofs as developed in the “ideal of pure reason” to apply in straightforward ways to his earlier attempts at a theistic proof. However, Kant rejects the three traditional arguments in The Only Possible Argument just as he does in the first Critique. Further, his reason for rejecting the ontological argument in particular is identical to the one presented in the first Critique: “Existence is not a predicate or a determination of a thing.” Accordingly, Kant understood himself to be developing a theistic proof in The Only Possible Argument that is distinct from the three traditional arguments and is also not subject to the objections he raises against them. Given that Kant rejects all theoretical proofs of God’s existence in his critical period and given that he did not take his critical objections to the traditional proofs to apply to the theistic proof developed in The Only Possible Argument, what is his justification for rejecting his pre-critical argument for God’s existence? (shrink)

A comprehensive collection of the writings of Mark Fisher (1968-2017), whose work defined critical writing for a generation. This comprehensive collection brings together the work of acclaimed blogger, writer, political activist and lecturer Mark Fisher (aka k-punk). Covering the period 2004 - 2016, the collection will include some of the best writings from his seminal blog k-punk; a selection of his brilliantly insightful film, television and music reviews; his key writings on politics, activism, precarity, hauntology, mental (...) health and popular modernism for numerous websites and magazines; his final unfinished introduction to his planned work on "Acid Communism"; and a number of important interviews from the last decade. Edited by Darren Ambrose and with a foreword by Simon Reynolds. (shrink)

A comprehensive collection of the writings of Mark Fisher (1968-2017), whose work defined critical writing for a generation. This comprehensive collection brings together the work of acclaimed blogger, writer, political activist and lecturer Mark Fisher (aka k-punk). Covering the period 2004 - 2016, the collection will include some of the best writings from his seminal blog k-punk; a selection of his brilliantly insightful film, television and music reviews; his key writings on politics, activism, precarity, hauntology, mental (...) health and popular modernism for numerous websites and magazines; his final unfinished introduction to his planned work on "Acid Communism"; and a number of important interviews from the last decade. Edited by Darren Ambrose and with a foreword by Simon Reynolds. (shrink)

After 1989, capitalism has successfully presented itself as the only realistic political-economic system - a situation that the bank crisis of 2008, far from ending, actually compounded. The book analyses the development and principal features of this capitalist realism as a lived ideological framework. Using examples from politics, films, fiction, work and education, it argues that capitalist realism colours all areas of contemporary experience. But it will also show that, because of a number of inconsistencies and glitches internal to the (...) capitalist reality program capitalism in fact is anything but realistic. (shrink)

This collection of writings by Mark Fisher, author of the acclaimed Capitalist Realism, argues that we are haunted by futures that failed to happen. Fisher searches for the traces of these lost futures in the work of David Peace, John Le Carré, Christopher Nolan, Joy Division, Burial and many others.

A collection of transcripts from Mark Fisher's final series of lectures at Goldsmiths, University of London, in late 2016. Edited with an introduction by Matt Colquhoun, this collection of lecture notes and transcriptions reveals acclaimed writer and blogger Mark Fisher in his element -- the classroom -- outlining a project that Fisher's death left so bittersweetly unfinished. Beginning with that most fundamental of questions -- "Do we really want what we say we want?" -- (...) class='Hi'>Fisher explores the relationship between desire and capitalism, and wonders what new forms of desire we might still excavate from the past, present, and future. From the emergence and failure of the counterculture in the 1970s to the continued development of his left-accelerationist line of thinking, this volume charts a tragically interrupted course for thinking about the raising of a new kind of consciousness, and the cultural and political implications of doing so. For Fisher, this process of consciousness raising was always, fundamentally, psychedelic -- just not in the way that we might think... (shrink)

Mark Fisher - Notes and Fragments - Journal of the History of Philosophy 45:3 Journal of the History of Philosophy 45.3 502-503 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by Mark Fisher Pennsylvania State University Immanuel Kant. Notes and Fragments. Edited by Paul Guyer. Translated by Chris Bowman, Paul Guyer, and Frederick Rauscher. The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. xxx + 663. Cloth, $140.00. The latest volume (...) in the Cambridge Edition of the works of Immanuel Kant contains the first extensive set of translated passages from Kant's handschriftliche Nachlaß, i.e., the hand-written notes that Kant made on loose sheets of paper, in margins, and on the blank pages that were interleaved into.. (shrink)

Wittgenstein's private language argument is interpreted as an example of a kind of transcendental argument which, if valid, explains why a certain concept must possess certain features. Cognition and affect are shown to require each other by an application of Bennett's account of what beings capable of true cognition must be capable of, and the necessity of certain emotions to the existence of any rules in a community is argued in similar fashion. Hume's account of love and admiration being rejected, (...) an account of love, intended to explain some of love's familiar features, is defended, and various proposed additions to the analysis are rejected. The idea of love is linked to those of value, agency, and the transcendental self by argument showing that each of these ideas requires all of the others. Finally, the idea of love is linked by a direct argument to that of the transcendental self. (shrink)

Animal welfare has been a subject of intellectual and academic study for a long time. In the past philosophers, thought-leaders and scientists have contributed to the debate, and seismic changes such as the advent of post-war industrial farming have brought about changes in attitudes to the way animals are farmed. Animal welfare as a science and philosophy can be understood as a trajectory through history of our understanding of our relationship with animals, enhanced in recent years through studies into animal (...) behaviour and cognition and societal changes in the way we view animals. --From back cover. (shrink)

Tailored to the Ethics components of AQA Philosophy and OCR Religious Studies. What does pleasure have to do with morality? What role, if any, should intuition have in the formation of moral theory? If something is ‘simulated’, can it be immoral? -/- This accessible and wide-ranging textbook explores these questions and many more. Key ideas in the fields of normative ethics, metaethics and applied ethics are explained rigorously and systematically, with a vivid writing style that enlivens the topics with energy (...) and wit. Individual theories are discussed in detail in the first part of the book, before these positions are applied to a wide range of contemporary situations including business ethics, sexual ethics, and the acceptability of eating animals. A wealth of real-life examples, set out with depth and care, illuminate the complexities of different ethical approaches while conveying their modern-day relevance. -/- This concise and highly engaging resource is tailored to the Ethics components of AQA Philosophy and OCR Religious Studies, with a clear and practical layout that includes end-of-chapter summaries, key terms, and common mistakes to avoid. It should also be of practical use for those studying Philosophy as part of the International Baccalaureate or an introductory Philosophy course at university. -/- Ethics for A-Level is of particular value to students and teachers, but Fisher and Dimmock’s precise and scholarly approach will appeal to anyone seeking a rigorous and lively introduction to the challenging subject of ethics. (shrink)

Mark Fisher; Intelligence, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 1, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 49–61, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.1967.tb00103.x.

Mark Fisher; Intelligence, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 1, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 49–61, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.1967.tb00103.x.

Mark Fisher; Intelligence, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 1, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 49–61, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.1967.tb00103.x.

The emergence of new platforms for public communication, public deliberation, and public action presents new possibilities for forming, organizing, and mobilizing public bodies, which invite philosophical reflection concerning the standards we currently look to for coordinating public movements and for evaluating their effects. Developing a broad understanding of public philosophy, this article begins with the view of philosophy and intellectual freedom articulated in Kant's publicly oriented writings. We then focus on the power of philosophical discourse to form and further articulate (...) public bodies. Drawing on Dewey's work, we discuss the role of philosophical discourse in the articulation of publics into self-regulated, sovereign entities. We conclude with an account of how publishing itself might come to play an important role in the practice of public philosophy in a digital age. (shrink)

These essays exhibit explanation and argument regarding some of the possible answers to these fundamental questions in moral philosophy.

As the title of her book indicates, Zuckert’s approach to Kant’s Critique of Judgment differs somewhat from that taken by many recent commentators. Rather than focusing narrowly on aspects of the CJ that are directly relevant to a particular philosophical issue, Zuckert offers an interpretation of the work as a whole that is aimed at vindicating Kant’s claim concerning its unity. According to her interpretation, the “Critique of Aesthetic Judgment” and the “Critique of Teleological Judgment” are parts of an extended (...) argument for a temporal and teleological conception of human subjectivity that differs significantly from the conception of subjectivity Kant develops in his other works. In Zuckert’s view, this new conception of the judging subject provides the unifying theme of the two main parts of the CJ, but it also marks a problematic transition within Kant’s critical philosophy. The CJ moves beyond the formal structures characteristic of transcendental subjectivity in its concern with the contingent, particular materials of human experience, history, and culture. Even as he offers his own formal idealism in support of a generally Leibnizean way of. (shrink)

Easy-care or natural lambing pertainsto those sheep able to successfully lamb andrear at least one lamb without human assistancein a difficult environment. Such sheep may havea higher survival rate, lower lamb mortality,and require less shepherding at lambing thanother sheep breeds or strains. The farmer orshepherd account of easy-care lambing revealsseveral themes. Firstly, stock were bred tosurvive or suit local environments orconditions, particularly steep hill country inNew Zealand. This involved extensive culling ofundesirable dams, regardless of how well theymight perform in traits (...) other than the abilityto survive and to produce live lambs atweaning. Sheep that did have problems wereoften assisted, recorded or marked and thenculled at an appropriate time; thus bothartificial (culling) and natural selection wereused. Secondly, natural selection enabled theimportant traits to be identified and they weresubsequently incorporated into artificialselection programs. Thirdly, the practice wasnecessitated by the impracticality ofsupervising lambing in difficult terrain andthe cost of skilled farm labor. Finally, it wasacknowledged that disturbance at lambingcreated problems and most importantly, theeasy-care approach reduced some of the problemstraditionally associated with lambing.Easy-care lambing systems thus aim to minimizesome of the detrimental effects associated withcarefully supervised lambing in someenvironments, by selecting sheep to suit boththat environment and modern farm management.They overcame pervasive influences our culturallegacy was exerting on the way we interact withanimals, and may have produced a system more inkeeping with the biology of the animal in anextensive environment. (shrink)

Cyberpunk fiction has been called “the supreme literary expression, if not of postmodernism then of late capitalism itself.” This thesis aims to analyse and question this claim by rethinking cyberpunk Action, postmodernism and late capitalism in terms of three - interlocking - themes: cybernetics, the Gothic and fiction. It claims that while what has been called “postmodernism” has been preoccupied with cybernetic themes, cybernetics has been haunted by the Gothic. The Gothic has always enjoyed a peculiarly intimate relation with the (...) fictional. Baudrillard's theories, meanwhile, suggest that, in a period dominated by simulation, fiction has a new cultural role. By putting “theory” into dialogue with “fiction”, the thesis examines Baudrillard's suggestion that the era of cybernetics “puts an end to science fiction, but also to theory, as specific genres”. The version of the Gothic the thesis presents is one stripped of many of its conventional cultural associations; it is a material Gothic.The machinery for re-thinking the Gothic comes from Deleuze-Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus. Deriving not from the familiar literary sources but from Wilhelm Worringer’s work on “barbarian art”, Deleuze-Guattari’s version of the Gothic departs from any reference to the supernatural. The crucial theme in Worringer, Deleuze-Guattari establish, is that of nonorganic continuum. Following Deleuze-Guattari’s lead, the thesis analyses key cyberpunk texts such as Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, David Cronenberg’s Videodrome and William Gibson’s Neuromancer in terms of what it calls this “hypematuralist” theme. While these texts have often been analysed in terms of “postmodernism” and “cyberpunk,” they have rarely been discussed in terms of the Gothic. Here, though, it will be shown that these texts, and important precursors, such as Ballard’s The Atrocity Exhibition, are centrally concerned with the breakdown of the boundary between the animate and the inanimate.. The thesis aims to demonstrate that, in its fixation upon catatonic trance, bodies that do not end at the skin, and agency-without-subjectivity, cyberpunk or “imploded science fiction” converges the Gothic with cybernetics on what, following Gibson, it calls the flatline. The flatline has two important senses, referring to a stale of “unlife” and a condition of radical immanence. The thesis is divided into four chapters, each of which considers the flatline under a different aspect. Chapter 1 concerns the flatlining of cybernetics and postmodernism; Chapter 2 deals with the flatlining of the body, paying particular attention to the Deleuze-Guattari/Artaud concept of the Body without Organs; Chapter 3 focuses upon the flatlining of reproduction, opposing both sexual and mechanical reproduction to Deleuze-Guattari’s idea of propagation; Chapter 4 considers the flatlining of fiction itself in the context of hyperreality. (shrink)

‘How very Lacanian’, psychoanalyst Milena Gardosh observes at onepoint in Michael Caton-Jones’ Basic Instinct 2 : a line that would become notorious.1The question is: just how Lacanian is Basic Instinct 2?

What is the relationship between biotechnology employees’ beliefs about the moral outcomes of a controversial transgenic research project and their attitudes of acceptance towards the project? To answer this question, employees (n=466) of a New Zealand company, AgResearch Ltd., were surveyed regarding a project to create transgenic cattle containing a synthetic copy of the human myelin basic protein gene (hMBP). Although diversity existed amongst employees’ attitudes of acceptance, they were generally: in favor of the project, believed that it should be (...) allowed to proceed to completion, and that it is acceptable to use transgenic cattle to produce medicines for humans. These three items were aggregated to form a project acceptance score. Scales were developed to measure respondents’ beliefs about the moral outcomes of the project for identified stakeholders in terms of the four principles of common morality (benefit, non-harm, justice, and autonomy). These data were statistically aggregated into an Ethical Valence Matrix for the project. The respondents’ project Ethical Valence Scores correlated significantly with their project acceptance scores (r=0.64, p<0.001), accounting for 41% of the variance in respondents’ acceptance attitudes. Of the four principles, non-harm had the strongest correlation with attitude to the project (r=0.59), followed by benefit and justice (both r=0.54), then autonomy (r=0.44). These results indicate that beliefs about the moral outcomes of a research project, in terms of the four principles approach, are strongly related to, and may be significant determinants of, attitudes to the research project. This suggests that, for employees of a biotechnology organization, ethical reasoning could be a central mechanism for the evaluation of the acceptability of a project. We propose that the Ethical Valence Matrix may be used as a tool to measure ethical attitudes towards controversial issues, providing a metric for comparison of perceived ethical consequences for multiple stakeholder groups and for the evaluation and comparison of the ethical consequences of competing alternative issues or projects. The tool could be used to measure both public and special interest groups’ ethical attitudes and results used for the development of socially responsible policy or by science organizations as a democratizing decision aid to selection amongst projects competing for scarce research funds. (shrink)