I elaborate and critically evaluate the theses of "environmental pragmatism," especially as captured in a recent collection with that title. While I am hopeful about this new approach, I want nonetheless to make reparations for its shortcomings. The primary difficulty is that environmental pragmatists tend to express only implicitly the metaphysical commitments of, say, William James, and yet the claims of environmental pragmatism would be profoundly strengthened by direct appeal to James's metaphysics. The ecosystem approach is particularly amenable to characterization (...) in terms of pragmatic metaphysics. Thus, I offer the thesis of wild ontology in an effort to enrich the empirical basis of environmental philosophy, and also to help cure environmental ethics of its political impotence. (shrink)

I elaborate and critically evaluate the theses of "environmental pragmatism," especially as captured in a recent collection with that title. While I am hopeful about this new approach, I want nonetheless to make reparations for its shortcomings. The primary difficulty is that environmental pragmatists tend to express only implicitly the metaphysical commitments of, say, William James, and yet the claims of environmental pragmatism would be profoundly strengthened by direct appeal to James's metaphysics. The ecosystem approach is particularly amenable to characterization (...) in terms of pragmatic metaphysics. Thus, I offer the thesis of wild ontology in an effort to enrich the empirical basis of environmental philosophy, and also to help cure environmental ethics of its political impotence. (shrink)

This article poses a question for Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) in general and Harman’s position in particular. It is Heidegger’s question: “How do matters stand with nothingness?” First, I present the basic outline of Harman’s OOO which is presented as a theory of everything. In order to pin down the question of nothing, I begin by asking about “something”: what is an object? And what does it mean that objects exist? Then I pursue by identifying two notions of nothing in (...) OOO: the withdrawal of objects and the in-between of two objects. The first, I call infrastructural nothing. The second, I call interrelational nothing. The latter is derived from the former. I argue that OOO is very close to Kierkegaard’s account of nothing as the space of possibility of possibilities, since an object is defined as its own interior space which must hold something in reserve in order to allow for change and emergence. Nothing is not merely nothing but something – a bounded openness. (shrink)

This paper examines the connection between Kierkegaard’s philosophy of existence and Graham Harman’s object-oriented ontology. The claim is that Harman’s position provides a conceptual apparatus that can beneficially address some basic ontological points in Kierkegaard about actuality, the self and the reality of individual subsisting mind-independent entities. On the other hand, Kierkegaard’s emphasis on the human self as a place situated in existence can provide a supplement to Harman’s realism which implicitly relies on topological notions. If we define an (...) entity, in a broad sense of the term, as something in its own right irreducible to its being-in-a-relation, but we do not want to end up in a frozen universe of isolated monads, we must revisit the notion of relationality in terms of vicarious causation (Harman) or indirect communication (Kierkegaard). (shrink)

This interview deals with the major themes in the work of Ruth Millikan. Her most fundamental idea is that the intentionality of inner and outer representations can be understood in analogy to biological functions. Another innovative feature is the view that thought and language stand parallel to each other. Thirdly, the basic ideas concerning the ontology and the epistemology of concepts are explained. Millikan aims at clarifying her position by contrasting it with Dretske, Fodor, Sellars, and Brandom. Finally, the (...) interview addresses topics that pose problems for her account as well as questions she does not treat in her work. (shrink)

In a spirit of collegial support, this paper argues that Beckett and Hager’s theoretical justification and empirical exemplifications do not do full justice to the complexity of group or team learning. We firstly reaffirm our support for the theoretical argument Becket and Hager make, though expressing some reservations about Complexity Theory, to explain the taken-for-granted assumptions that learning by an individual is the paradigm case of learning and that context plays a minimal role in this process. Drawing on our joint (...) and separate work, we demonstrate that Becket and Hager’s argument is less radical than it may initially seem because it is predicated on: (i) cognitive-bounded rather than “distributed” or “extended” conception of mind; (ii) material rather than a “immaterial” conception of activity; and (iii) co-present rather than a “fractional” or “connective” conception of ontology. Despite making this critique, we conclude by making the case that we are adding further substance to Becket and Hager’s overarching argument and, in doing so, encouraging them to be more radical about how they conceptualise the complexity of learning. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to explore the connection between moods and meteors or atmospheric phenomena in Heidegger’s thinking. The idea of the weather as something affecting our emotional state is not new but goes all the way back to Homer. However, the ontological basis of this connection is missing. In this paper, I argue that Heidegger provides exactly such an ontological account of moods and meteors not as two separate spheres but as a common atmosphere of attuned elementality—a (...) dynamic interface where beings bend into being. Being can no longer be understood solely as that which determines beings qua beings but beings inform/transform being as well. (shrink)

Much of contemporary philosophy, political theory, and social thought has been shaped directly or indirectly by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, though there is considerable disagreement about how his work should be understood. He has been described both as a metaphysician and characterized as an ironic narrator who anticipated the character of philosophy after metaphysics. His position is equally ambiguous with regard to his political thought. He has been construed both as an enemy of the liberal state and as a friend (...) of freedom. This volume's revisionist reassessment, building on the scholarship of Klaus Hartmann, explores these ambiguities in favor of a non-metaphysical reading of Hegel's arguments. It also shows how the foundations of his political thought support a liberal democratic state. This reappraisal of Hegel's arguments resituates him as a philosopher who anticipates the difficulties of post-modernity and offers a basis for reassessing ontology, aesthetics, and revolution. Philosophers and those doing work in political theory will find this volume of great interest. (shrink)

In this article, we explore Beauvoir’s account of what she claims is an alienated relation to our ageing bodies. This body can inhibit an active engagement with the world, which marks our humanity. Her claims rest on the binary between the body-for-itself and the body-in-itself. She shares this binary with Sartre, but a perceptive phenomenology of the affective body can also be found, which works against this binary and allows her thought to be brought into conversation with Levinas. For Levinas, (...) the susceptibility of the body is constitutive of our subjectivity, rather than a source of alienation. If we develop Beauvoir’s thought in the direction of his, an ontological structure is suggested, distinct from Sartre – a structure which makes room for her pervasive attention to affectivity. (shrink)

In the Western world, this negativistic movement has proved to be a far more serious and lasting threat. Failing to take a firm root in Europe, the place of its origin, it moved to England and North America, where the central disciplines of philosophy were found to be less firmly grounded in sound empirical traditions of academic life and thought. Here for many years it has now run its course, and has exerted a powerful destructive effect. In many secular schools (...) and universities, the history of philosophy has been neglected, logic and linguistics have replaced ontology as the focal discipline, and many philosophers, moved by the widespread fear and idolatry of "science," have abandoned the performance of their vital descriptive and synoptic functions. This has had a markedly disintegrating effect on the cultural life of the West at a time of crisis and world upheaval. (shrink)

Abstract:In the past twenty years, the Anthropocene debate in the humanities and social sciences has focused on two basic approaches concerning the rise and challenge of anthropogenic climate change. The former critically addresses the socio-political underbelly of the re-centering of the human species as a geological force as proposed by the natural sciences through the guiding question: Who is the Anthropos? The latter examines the ethical challenges we face in the wake of deep timespans and fragmented agencies. This article presents (...) the upshots of this ongoing debate and suggests an ontological framework of distributed identities between different conceptual horizons of humanoid formations between the 'Anthropos' (plurality as a single whole) and what I call 'anthropo(i)s' (singulars within plural wholes) to address the tension between individual responsibility (not everyone is equally guilty) and agential response-ability (humans, not tortoises, caused climate change). (shrink)

At the beginning of his remarks, Harries quotes my statement that in Heidegger's works there is an "unclarity as to the relation between a basic study of human existence in the world and strict ontology." By "strict ontology" here, I mean the clarification of the meaning of being, as Heidegger calls it, or in my terminology the attempt to discover what things really are in the world, as opposed to our varying human versions. I maintain that the relation (...) between a basic study of human existence and strict ontology, in this sense, is treated in one way in Sein und Zeit, and in a very different way in the Letter on Humanism and the later writings. Shortly before 1947 there was a basic shift, or "turning", in Heidegger's thought. This revealed the "unclarity" about which I am speaking. According to Harries, there is no unclarity here, but only two different stages in a continuous "development". As I see it, there is a real discontinuity, or "turning." But as Harries puts it, "Heidegger does not reverse his position... there is, however, development." This is the first issue between us. (shrink)

But in attempting to follow some of the steps of Mr. Barber's later argument, and in examining some of the conclusions to which they lead, I have found myself confronted with difficulties which seem sufficiently important to warrant the critical attention of Mr. Barber and the readers of this Review. These difficulties fall into three groups concerning: 1) preliminary arguments; 2) apparent inconsistencies between certain conclusions; and 3) inadequacies in basic ontology.

In this paper, I argue that the debate in the environmental humanities about the reconceptualization of the human being as one vs. many in light of the Anthropocene, resembles the very structure of Kierkegaard’s notion of the public as a compound object composed of individuals. Further, I argue that the public provides not only a model for understanding the ontological makeup of the Anthropos but also serves as an early version of it. Hence, the public plays a role in the (...) very emergence of the Anthropocene itself. (shrink)

In this article, I examine the possible link between Nietzsche’s philosophy of the will to power and the new movement in continental philosophy known as speculative realism. Nietzsche is never invoked as a possible (re)source in the war against anti-realism, nor is he identified as a leading officer behind enemy lines but remains in the neutral zone. Although Meillassoux does seem to place Nietzsche in the camp of anti-realists, he is not the main target but only mentioned in a passing (...) remark. In this article, I interpret Nietzsche into the framework of speculative realism and argue that he can be said to occupy a position in-between Graham Harman’s object-oriented ontology and Meillassoux’s speculative materialism. (shrink)

In this article, I examine the possible link between Nietzsche’s philosophy of the will to power and the new movement in continental philosophy known as speculative realism. Nietzsche is never invoked as a possible (re)source in the war against anti-realism, nor is he identified as a leading officer behind enemy lines but remains in the neutral zone. Although Meillassoux does seem to place Nietzsche in the camp of anti-realists, he is not the main target but only mentioned in a passing (...) remark. In this article, I interpret Nietzsche into the framework of speculative realism and argue that he can be said to occupy a position in-between Graham Harman’s object-oriented ontology and Meillassoux’s speculative materialism. (shrink)

In a radio broadcast from 1933, Martin Heidegger explains his decision to refuse a professorship at the University of Berlin by defending a philosophy that he says is rooted in the ‘provinces’. The broadcast - entitled ‘Creative Landscape’ - sees Heidegger on the cusp of the ‘turn’ in his thought from the existentialism of Being and Time (1927) to the ‘poetic thinking’ of his work from the mid-1930s onwards. It is a fascinating yet neglected snapshot of his thought at a (...) crucial historical moment, and also reveals some of the deeper problems raised by his philosophy - his rejection of epistemology, his anti-modernism, and the contradictions of fundamental ontology itself. The present paper argues that Heidegger’s refusal of the professorship reveals a deep antagonism between his philosophy of Being and the public sphere of the city, and highlights the weakness of Heidegger’s thinking when faced with some of the central problems of modernity. Key Words: alienation • city • Heidegger • modernity • provinces • public sphere • reification • sociology • Tönnies. (shrink)

In a radio broadcast from 1933, Martin Heidegger explains his decision to refuse a professorship at the University of Berlin by defending a philosophy that he says is rooted in the ‘provinces’. The broadcast - entitled ‘Creative Landscape’ - sees Heidegger on the cusp of the ‘turn’ in his thought from the existentialism of Being and Time (1927) to the ‘poetic thinking’ of his work from the mid-1930s onwards. It is a fascinating yet neglected snapshot of his thought at a (...) crucial historical moment, and also reveals some of the deeper problems raised by his philosophy - his rejection of epistemology, his anti-modernism, and the contradictions of fundamental ontology itself. The present paper argues that Heidegger’s refusal of the professorship reveals a deep antagonism between his philosophy of Being and the public sphere of the city, and highlights the weakness of Heidegger’s thinking when faced with some of the central problems of modernity. (shrink)

Starting from a specific case, the spontaneous return of wolves to France and the intense conflicts that event has triggered, the French philosopher Baptiste Morizot invites us to think about what he calls "diplomacy with living beings." How can we conceive of cohabitation with the most recalcitrant wildlife, large predators in particular, and what concrete solutions need to be invented to make this happen? Drawing on knowledge gleaned from history and philosophy as well as from ethology, scientific ecology, and biology, (...) Wild Diplomacy prompts us to ask what relations we want to reinvent with living beings today and how we might fundamentally reimagine our status as living beings among other life forms. This prize-winning book has broken new ground in contemporary French environmental philosophy. (shrink)

This article thinks with oceans and swimming, in dialogue with decolonial feminist materialist approaches and other current novel methodologies which foreground embodiment and relational ontologies, in order to consider the conceptual potential of such diffractions for the project of alternative scholarly practices. We focus on swimming in the sea as one form of wild methodology and Slow scholarship that draws on hauntology to think about the possibilities of such methodologies for troubling normative academic practices directed at different ways of (...) being and becoming. Located in the (post-)apartheid space of South African higher education, which continues to follow and reinstate colonial, patriarchal and neoliberal capitalist logics, we ask questions about the silences around material histories of subjugation and violence that are embedded in the institution and the lives of those who enter these spaces. Propositions are made about how a swimming methodology may inspire a consciousness and engagement with intersectional gender hauntings that permeate the material, curricula, relational and affective spaces of academia as part of disrupting and reimagining the university as a space of/for justice and flourishing. We explore the ways in which embodied, affective methodologies in or near the ocean/s may be deployed to subvert and reconfigure, to make and stay with trouble. We therefore propose sea swimming as a powerful way of thinking with the sea in productive and creative ways for scholarship towards a justice-to-come, to open up new imaginaries of scholarship that make a difference. (shrink)

Twenty-first century critics frequently misread Quinean ontological commitment as a toothless doctrine of anti-metaphysical pragmatism. Janssen-Lauret's historical investigations reveal that they misinterpret the influence of Quine's naturalism. His naturalistic view of philosophy as continuous with science informs a much more interesting conception of ontological commitments as generated by indispensable explanatory roles. But Janssen-Lauret uncovers a previously undetected weakness in Quine's meta-ontology. Careful examination of his debate with another naturalistic nominalist, Ruth Barcan Marcus, reveals that his holism leaves him blind (...) to her acquaintance-based ontological commitment via proper names. Janssen-Lauret examines some crucial misunderstandings between Barcan Marcus and Quine, centring on their wildly different interpretations of proper names, quantification and identity, and argues that these are motivated by their diametrically opposed positions on epistemology. (shrink)

The concept of wild food does not play a significant role in contemporary nutritional science and it is seldom regarded as a salient feature within standard dietary guidelines. The knowledge systems of wild edible taxa are indeed at risk of disappearing. However, recent scholarship in ethnobotany, field biology, and philosophy demonstrated the crucial role of wild foods for food biodiversity and food security. The knowledge of how to use and consume wild foods is not only a (...) means to deliver high-end culinary offerings, but also a way to foster alternative models of consumption. Our aim in this paper is to provide a conceptual framework for wild foods, which can account for diversified wild food ontologies. In the first section of the paper, we survey the main conception of wild foods provided in the literature, what we call the Nature View. We argue that this view falls short of capturing characteristics that are core to a sound account of wilderness in a culinary sense. In the second part of the paper, we provide the foundation for an improved model of wild food, which can countenance multiple dimensions and degrees connoting wilderness in the culinary world. In the third part of the paper we argue that thanks to a more nuanced ontological analysis, the gradient framework can serve ethnobiologists, philosophers, scientists, and policymakers to represent and negotiate theoretical conflicts on the nature of wild food. (shrink)

In a promising working note to the Visible and Invisible, Merleau-Ponty proposes that we understand Being according to topological space – relations of proximity, distance, and envelopment – and move away from an image of Being based on homogeneous, inert Euclidean space. With reference to treatments of cross-sensory perception, color-blindness, and the concept of quale or qualia, I seek to rehearse this shift from Euclidean to topological Being by illustrating how modern science confines color itself to a Euclidean model of (...) color space. I discuss “being as Object” in Merleau-Ponty’s later work before showing how color, and indeed all perception, is reduced to being as Object in the form of “quale”. Next, I address discussions in Merleau-Ponty’s work and contemporary research to illustrate how synesthesia and so-called color-blindness are rendered abnormal by this objectified being of color. Merleau-Ponty’s reading of synesthesia follows directly from his rejection of quale, and his use of color perception serves as a rejection of solipsism. With appeal to his proposed topological model of Being, I conclude by recognizing the problematic nature of synesthesia and color-blindness as being ontological, not psychological.Dans une note de travail, à mon sens décisive, du Visible et l’Invisible, Merleau-Ponty propose que l’on comprenne l’Être à partir de l’espace topologique – relations de proximité, distance et enveloppement – allant à l’encontre d’une l’image de l’Être fondée sur un espace euclidien homogène et inerte. En faisant référence aux traitements de la perception synesthésique, au daltonisme et au concept de quale ou qualia, j’essayerai de décrire ce passage de l’Être euclidien à l’Être topologique en montrant que la science moderne finit par confiner la couleur dans un modèle euclidien d’espace-couleur. J’examinerai « l’Être-objet » dans les derniers écrits de Merleau-Ponty avant de montrer comment la couleur, et plus en général la perception, est réduite à être comme un Objet dans la forme d’un « quale ». Ensuite, en examinant les analyses merleau-pontiennes et les recherches contemporaines, je montrerai comment la synesthésie et le daltonisme sont donc considérés comme anormaux à partir de cette objectivation de la couleur. La lecture que Merleau-Ponty donne de la synesthésie est la conséquence directe de son refus du quale, et l’utilisation qu’il fait de la perception des couleurs sert comme un refus du solipsisme. En faisant appel au modèle topologique de l’Être qu’il propose, je conclurai en constatant que la nature problématique de la synesthésie et du daltonisme est ontologique et non pas psychologique.In una nota di lavoro al Visibile e l’invisibile, Merleau-Ponty propone di comprendere l’Essere a partire da uno spazio topologico – secondo le relazioni di prossimità, distanza e avvolgimento – e abbandona l’immagine di un Essere fondato su uno spazio omogeneo, inerte, euclideo. Facendo riferimento ai trattamenti per le percezioni sinestetiche, al daltonismo e al concetto di quale o qualia, si cercherà di provare questo passaggio da un Essere euclideo a uno topologico, illustrando quanto la scienza moderna tenda a ridurre il concetto stesso di colore a un modello euclideo di spazio-colore. Si esaminerà l’“Essere-oggetto” degli ultimi lavori di Merleau-Ponty, mostrando come il colore, e in realtà la percezione tout court, vengano ridotti a oggetto nella forma di “quale”. Infine, si esaminerà l’opera merleau-pontiana e la ricerca contemporanea al fine di illustrare quanto la sinestesia e il daltonismo siano resi anormali da questa oggettivazione dell’essere del colore. L’interpretazione merleau-pontiana della sinestesia deriva proprio dal suo rifiuto del quale, e il suo uso della percezione del colore funge da rifiuto del solipsismo. Ricorrendo al modello topologico di Essere elaborato da Merleau-Ponty, si conclude riconoscendo che il problema della sinestesia e del daltonismo è, a tutti gli effetti, ontologico e non psicologico. (shrink)

This intra-view explores a number of productive junctions between contemporary Deleuzoguattarian and new materialist praxes via a series of questions and provocations. Productive tensions are explored via questions of epistemological, ontological, ethical, and political intra-sections as well as notions of difference, transversal contamination, ecosophical practices, diffraction, and, lastly, schizoanalysis. Various irruptions around biophilosophy, transduction, becomology, cartography, power relations, hyperobjects as events, individuation, as well as dyschronia and disorientation, take the discussion further into the wild pedagogical spaces that both praxes (...) have in common. -/- . (shrink)

The problem raised in the article is actualized not by the artificial attachment of the topic of ecology to the existential problems of humankind, but by the urgent need to conceptualize the dangers of a growing gap between the further development of civilization and ignoring the primary nature of its existence, the analysis of modern specific dangers of wildlife, flora and fauna, catastrophic climatic phenomena, desertification, and chemical pollution of the land. The posed problem of the conceptualization of wild (...) nature logically continues the intention of the authors to turn to the human-dimensional characteristics of the entire natural environment. At the level of socio-philosophical analysis, the meaning of a new model of relations between society and nature is revealed, and alternative concepts of nature protection to modern practices are comprehended. The importance of wildlife in its narrowed (terrestrial) space for social development on the established ideological principles of the most careful attitudes to wildlife, taking into account the reverse dangerous impact of the destructible habitat on humanity, has been proved. (shrink)

From the time of Locke, discussions of personal identity have often ignored the question of our basic metaphysical nature: whether we human people are biological organisms, spatial or temporal parts of organisms, bundles of perceptions, or what have you. The result of this neglect has been centuries of wild proposals and clashing intuitions. What Are We? is the first general study of this important question. It beings by explaining what the question means and how it differs from others, such (...) as questions of personal identity and the mind-body problem. It then examines in some depth the main possible accounts of our metaphysical nature, detailing both their theoretical virtues and the often grave difficulties they face. The book does not endorse any particular account of what we are, but argues that the matter turns on more general issues in the ontology of material things. If composition is universal--if any material things whatever make up something bigger--then we are temporal parts of organisms. If things never compose anything bigger, so that there are only mereological simples, then we too are simples--perhaps the immaterial substances of Descartes--or else we do not exist at all (a view Olson takes very seriously). The intermediate view that some things compose bigger things and others do not leads almost inevitably to the conclusion that we are organisms. So we can discover what we are by working out when composition occurs. (shrink)

In this paper I attempt to develop several ways Merleau-Ponty's ontology might contribute to an environmental ethic through a redefinition of his concept of flesh in terms of a general theory of affectivity. Currently accepted interpretations of the concept such as those in Abram, Toadvine, Barbaras, and Dastur rely upon conceiving flesh as a perceptual experience. I contest this interpretation and argue that a more productive conception of flesh emerges when understood in terms of Heidegger's philosophy. The paper concludes (...) with a consideration of the normative significance of flesh by examining the role of “wildness“ within a place-based ethic. (shrink)

Although the term taxon is one of the most common concepts in biology, a range of its meanings cannot be comprehended by an universal definition. Usually, biologists construe their knowledge of “the same” taxon by substantially different interpretations, so they find themselves in need either to justify this “multiplication of taxon essences”, or to surmount their plurality unifying its interpretations into a single explanation of what a taxon is. In both cases, an ontological status (“reality”) of that taxon is questioned. (...) Therefore, discrepancy between universality of the taxon concept in biology and unavoidable plurality of its interpretations can be regarded as a source of problem of the taxon ontology. The present work aims to clarify the premises of this discrepancy using phenomenological approach. Three ways of the taxon positing (as a class, as a place in the world, and as a individualized body) have been distinguished. Taxon as a class is established by common essence that is shared by a set of living beings. These living beings are regarded as speculative objects beyond an idea of the world, i.e. as objects of the experimental science. A question about ontology of taxon as a class refers to the scholastic problem of universalia; its status can be defined within the scope of the nominalism/realism opposition. Taxon as a place of common appearance of the specimens is regarded in the context of the etiological relations unifying various entities into the entire world. Taxon as a place refers to a certain position in the Natural System that is construed as an etiological map of the world. In this case a specimen of a living being is known as a curiosity, i.e. representant of its relationships as well as of the place of its origin. Ontological status of a taxon as a place is to be clarified within the framework of the natural/artificial opposition. The positing of a taxon as a collective body marked off by limits of joint survival of living beings is characteristic for biology in the strict sense which arose in the very beginning of the 19 century. A taxon as a body established by the techniques of disciplinary power sensu M. Foucault extended from the human bodies to bodies of other living beings. The ontological status of a taxon as a collective body can be defined within the scope of the wild/domesticated opposition. Therefore, the discrepancy between the universality of the taxon concept and the plurality of its interpretations is underlayed by interpenetration of three distinct modi of taxon establishing. Distinguishing between these three modi can clarify sources of ontological problems concerned with the term taxon in each case when they arise. (shrink)

While the debate continues over whether Nietzsche’s conception of the will to power is intended as ontology, biology, psychology, or some variant of the three, there is a significant consensus on many sides that were the will to power intended as an ontology, it would be inconsistent with his anti-metaphysical stance, implausible from a contemporary scientific perspective, and very poorly supported, based only on wild metaphysical speculation or sloppy, pseudo-scientific generalization. In this paper, I suggest, to the (...) contrary, that Nietzsche’s published works contain a substantial, though implied, argument for the will to power as ontology. Further, this ontology and the supporting argument for it are fully consistent with a naturalist methodology. Indeed, I will suggest that Nietzsche believes the will to power ontology follows directly from his rejection of metaphysics and is grounded in a critical form of naturalism. Consequently, even if he is mistaken in this conclusion, we must take the will to power ontology as seriously as we do his critique of metaphysics, for it is intended as a direct consequence of that critique. I will further suggest that, once we have recognized Nietzsche’s implied philosophical argument for the will to power ontology, we can better understand the intended scope and purpose of the theory of the will to power, as well as reject many of the influential interpretations of the concept, including the vitalist (Heidegger, Schacht), intentionalist (Clark), evolutionary (Richardson), and teleological (Reginster) readings. In contrast to these interpretations, I argue that the will to power as ontology follows directly from his rejection of three principal metaphysical presumptions: substance, causal agency, and teleology. As a rejection of substance, the will to power describes reality as consisting of general will, not objects, agents, or discrete wills. As a rejection of causal agency, it describes events as maximal manifestations of power rather than as realized potencies—abilities, motives, or possibilities actualized by efficient causal agencies. Finally, as a rejection of teleology, the will to power is a descriptive principle of action and events as essentially active engagements of obstacles, rather than an explanatory final cause, purpose or aim. Consequently, the will to power is a not a theory of desires, intentions, or drives, but rather a basic descriptive principle of events or activity, describing not agency but the causal process as a whole, and tending not toward accumulating power or overcoming resistance, but rather toward the activity of resistance as such. I conclude that the will to power is a critical ontology about what reality is not, rather than a positive theory of reality, intended not to explain events but to reveal and reject the common metaphysical presuppositions that underlie many common-sense, philosophical and scientific explanations of reality, such as freedom of the will, rational and moral motivation, physical atomism and the concept of natural law. (shrink)

What follows from the suggestion to pay attention to what is in-between science and politics? Karen François’s paper “In-between science and politics” follows Latour in arguing for the need for political theory to get out of the Platonic cave that it still inhabits. Political theory needs to be brought into the wild through empirical studies of how science and politics in fact intermix. And the Latourian proposition needs to be strengthened by focusing on the embodied knowledges that enable situated (...) objectivities to emerge. Though worthwhile, these arguments are weakened by a superficial treatment of political theory and by a lack of attention to the difficulties involved in combining Latourian actor-network theory with the “strong objectivity” of standpoint theory. Most problematically the paper purports to define as an agenda (exploring the in-between of science and politics) what whole fields of inquiry have already been in full swing exploring for quite a while. The ‘turn to ontology’ in STS and social anthropology and the development of ‘empirical philosophy’ suggests what might be at stake in such explorations. (shrink)

From the time of Locke, discussions of personal identity have often ignored the question of our basic metaphysical nature: whether we human people are biological organisms, spatial or temporal parts of organisms, bundles of perceptions, or what have you. The result of this neglect has been centuries of wild proposals and clashing intuitions. What Are We? is the first general study of this important question. It beings by explaining what the question means and how it differs from others, such (...) as questions of personal identity and the mind-body problem. It then examines in some depth the main possible accounts of our metaphysical nature, detailing both their theoretical virtues and the often grave difficulties they face. The book does not endorse any particular account of what we are, but argues that the matter turns on more general issues in the ontology of material things. If composition is universal–if any material things whatever make up something bigger–then we are temporal parts of organisms. If things never compose anything bigger, so that there are only mereological simples, then we too are simples–perhaps the immaterial substances of Descartes–or else we do not exist at all . The intermediate view that some things compose bigger things and others do not leads almost inevitably to the conclusion that we are organisms. So we can discover what we are by working out when composition occurs. (shrink)

This volume has four parts; in Part I, dealing with the philosophical tradition, Francis M. Parker examines various senses of insight and discusses its goodness as an activity. Henry B. Veatch questions Wild's acceptance of the life-world and asks for a critical, explicitly transcendental justification of it. Robert Jordan reviews Anselm's ontological argument and its place in other proofs for God's existence, and in religious experience. John M. Anderson examines "Art and Philosophy" with the help of Plato and Hegel. (...) Part II examines the life-world; Robert R. Ehman writes on the phenomenon of world, and Calvin O. Schrag situates Husserl's notion of life-world within the tradition of Hegel, Dilthey and Heidegger as a theme in the problem of history. Enzo Paci has an essay relating the life-world to the Husserlian analysis of the body as a locus of mobility, life, sensation, and, ultimately thought. C. A. van Peursen's contribution examines the nature of structure in the life-world. Part III deals with the individual and society and includes a picturesque, sensitive and profound essay by Erwin Straus on "The Miser." George Schrader writes on "Monetary Value and Personal Value," W. L. McBride on "Individualisms," and Wilfrid Desan on "Sartre the Individualist." Part IV, "Subjectivity and Objectivity," includes Paul Ric£ur distinguishing three types of philosophical discourse about the will, and claiming that a hermeneutic of symbols must supplement both discourse which is phenomenological and that which proposes meaningful action. Mikel Dufrenne writes on "Structuralism and Humanism," Nathaniel Lawrence on "The Illusion of Monolinear Time," and Samuel J. Todes and Hubert L. Dreyfus on "The Existentialist Critique of Objectivity." James Edie has an important essay on Husserl's notion of "the grammatical" and the a priori in grammar; he relates it to Chomsky's theory of grammatical structures. The volume ends with a bibliography of Wild's works, reviews of them, and essays devoted to his thought.--R. S. (shrink)

Seemingly distant practices of molecular biology and indigenous Xhosa healing have commonalities that I would like to bring into conversation in this article. The preclinical trial of an indigenous medicine brings them together in a research consortium. In this instance, both sets of experts are meant to collaborate in preparing a wild bush for it to pass the tests of the randomized clinical trial (RCT) and to potentially become a biopharmaceutical to counter the tuberculosis pandemic. I aim to tease (...) out how the two sets of actors and their respective practices converge and diverge in their healing hopes and ways of managing uncertainty. Ultimately, I am interested in understanding how the preferred process of making medicine “work” by each set of actors relies upon particular ways of knowing and not knowing life, bringing some ontologies into being, letting others wither away. The shared ways of knowing life as a movement of opening at the edges of the RCT are proposed as paths of recognition between one and the other practice. (shrink)

This paper provides an introduction to the history of the concept of “emerging infectious diseases” (EID) and reflects on how humanities and social science scholars have interacted with it. It starts with a chronological outline of the coinage of the concept in the early 1990s in the wake of the shocks provoked by Ebola and HIV/AIDS, which disrupted the idea that the West was transitioning from a period of infectious diseases to one of chronic diseases. We argue that humanities and (...) social science scholars in disciplines such as history, anthropology, STS, and literature studies have critically explored the concept, showing how entrenched it was in the perceptions of the US and Europe about threats posed by the rest of the globe. Moreover, we explore how scholars in the humanities have used the EID concept to comment on contemporary realities and mobilized it to create dialogues with scientists, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Subsequently, we explore how the growing contemporary interest in EID has pushed historians to research the ontological and epistemological factors that enabled the “emergence” of diseases long before the invention of the EID concept, such as plague, Chagas disease, and sleeping sickness, as well as the factors that transformed these and other emerging diseases into pandemics. We conclude by outlining a few neglected factors in the EID literature that could be addressed: the circulation and reception of the concept outside of the West, the examination of EID as a problem for wild animals and not just for humans, and global histories of disease emergence as an epistemological and social process. (shrink)

This book offers, for the first time in aesthetics, a comprehensive account of aestheticism of the 19<SUP>th</SUP> century as a philosophical theory of its own right. Taking philosophical and art-historical viewpoints, this cross-disciplinary book presents aestheticism as the foundational movement of modernist aesthetics of the 20<SUP>th</SUP> century. Emerging in the writings of the foremost aestheticists - Oscar Wilde, Walter Pater, James Whistler, and their formalist successors such as Clive Bell, Roger Fry, and Clement Greenberg - aestheticism offers a uniquely synthetic (...) definition of art. It captures the artwork’s relations between form and content, art’s independent ontology and autonomy, art’s internal completeness, criticism, immunity to recruitment, the uniqueness of each medium, and musicality, as well as the logical-theoretical affiliation of art for art’s sake to epistemology, ethics and philosophy of language.<BR> Those are used by Michalle Gal to formulate a definition of art in terms of a theory of Deep Formalism, setting aestheticism, which aspires to preserve the artistic medium, as a critique of the current linguistic-conceptual aesthetics that developed after the linguistic turn of aesthetics. (shrink)

Amie Thomasson and Eli Hirsch have both attempted to deflate metaphysics, by combining Carnapian ideas with an appeal to ordinary language. My main aim in this paper is to critique such deflationary appeals to ordinary language. Focussing on Thomasson, I draw two very general conclusions. First: ordinary language is a wildly complicated phenomenon. Its implicit ontological commitments can only be tackled by invoking a context principle; but this will mean that ordinary language ontology is not a trivial enterprise. Second: (...) ordinary language often points in different directions simultaneously, so that a wide variety of existence questions cannot be deflated merely by appealing to ordinary language. (shrink)

Quine's early arguments in favor of "Ontological Relativity" depend on wild but interesting alternatives to standard ontology,most apparent when viewing his unusual idea of undetached object parts. In Quine's later philosophy, by contrast, he invokes trivial proxy functions and simple permutations to standard ontology, and in so doing paves the way for his claim of "Inscrutability of Reference". Nevertheless, Quine's more recent alternatives to standard ontology have thus far remained uninteresting for ontological questions, as his later (...) arguments fail to offer any real alternative to our standard identity relation. For this reason, I have chosen to return to Quine's original idea of "Ontological Relativity" and put it to the test. In my investigation, development and subsequent defense of Quine's original presentation, I attempt to show that it is in fact possible to read Quine's ontology of undetached object parts into a large sphere of our language. (shrink)

Conceptual and methodological changes in ecology have the potential to alter significantly the way we view the world. A result of embracing a dynamic model has been to make ecological restoration projects a viable alternative, whereas under 'equilibrium ecology' restoration was considered destructive interference. The logic of sustainability strategies within the context of dynamic forces promises a greater compatibility with anthropogenic activity. Unhappily, environmental restoration turns out to be paradoxical under the current identification of wilderness with wildness where wildness is, (...) at least, a necessary condition for the possession of natural value. The solution to the paradox is to separate wilderness from wildness both conceptually and ontologically by enlarging the domain of wildness to include certain human activities. (shrink)

Human memory in the wild often involves multiple forms of remembering at once, as habitual, affective, personal, factual, shared, and institutional memories operate at once within and across individuals and small groups. The interdisciplinary study of the ways in which history animates dynamical systems at many different timescales requires a multidimensional framework in which to analyse a broad range of social memory phenomena. Certain features of personal memory - its development, its constructive nature, and its role in temporally extended (...) agency - make it apt for various forms of integration into larger socio-cognitive systems. Drawing on ideas from psychology, distributed cognition, and social theory, this paper aims to make conceptual space for a naturalistic ontology of collective memory. (shrink)

How to understand Primordial Sociality and its emergence philosophically in relation to Fundamental Ontology and Existentialism. Primordial Sociality is based on Wild Being. This is distinguished from Existential Sociality based on the Emergent Meta-system. The various kinds of Being such as Pure, Process, and Hyper Being gives rise to different kinds of basic sociality which are Pure Sociality, Process Sociality, and Hyper Sociality prior to the arising of Wild Sociality that then appears on the surface of Ultra (...) Sociality that is completely transcendent (height) or is represented by the utterly unconscious (depth). Wild Being is a surface phenomena of the expression of Sense differentiated from Nonsense. Wild Sociality appears within the Transcendental field as the intrapenetration of what Merleau-Ponty calls Tacit Cogitos. (shrink)