Editorial Introduction to 'Real Objects or Material Subjects? Essays in Contemporary Continental Metaphysics' by Michael Burns & Brian Smith.

Adrian Johnston is well known for his work at the intersection of Lacanian psychoanalysis, German idealism, contemporary French philosophy and most recently cognitive neuroscience. In the context of the current issue, Johnston represents the most complete development of a contemporary theory of Transcendental Materialism. In the following interview we explore both the implications of Johnston’s previous work, as well as the directions his most recent projects are taking.

Aircraft with increasingly high performance were important to the war effort in World War II. Changes in technology allowed aircraft to reach faster speeds and to complete missions at higher altitudes. With these changes came new obstacles for pilots who had to tolerate these stresses. Of primary concern to the U.S. War Department was the loss of consciousness that often occurred with high-speed maneuvers and especially during pull-up after dive-bombing missions. In some cases, pilots would experience up to 9G of (...) force during rapid ascent, much more than the 6G threshold that typically leads to loss of consciousness. In 1941, a research team in Red Wing, MN, proposed experiments to elucidate the mechanism .. (shrink)

Anxiety concerning the decline and fall of civilization appears throughout Walker Percy’s body of work. Smith argues that what sets Percy’s account of this issue apart from others rests in his preoccupation not so much with depicting actual disaster for what it might tell us about human nature, politics, or our souls, but rather, with his focus on the end of our society as a clue that might help explain our predicament. Percy saw his role as reading the signs of (...) our spiritual and social disorders, and rendering them intelligible to an audience that increasingly possessed a language inadequate to understanding the situation. Percy’s analysis of our attitudes toward catastrophe, disaster, war, and the end of civilization proves a fertile ground for exploring the fault lines in our social and political life. (shrink)