DOCSLIB.ORG

Race and Computation: an Existential Phenomenological Inquiry Concerning Man, Mind, and the Body by Dilan D

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Race and Computation: an Existential Phenomenological Inquiry Concerning Man, Mind, and the Body by Dilan D Race and Computation: An Existential Phenomenological Inquiry Concerning Man, Mind, and the Body by Dilan D. Mahendran A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Information Management & Systems and the Designated Emphasis in New Media in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Paul Duguid, Co-Chair Professor Kimiko Ryokai, Co-Chair Professor AnnaLee Saxenian Professor Hubert L. Dreyfus Fall 2011 Abstract Race and Computation: An Existential Phenomenological Inquiry Concerning Man, Mind, and the Body by Dilan D. Mahendran Doctor of Philosophy in Information Management & Systems University of California, Berkeley Professor Paul Duguid, Co-Chair Professor Kimiko Ryokai, Co-Chair This dissertation is concerned with two phenomena, race and computation, their emergence in modernity and their convergence today in our modern technological epoch. From the perspective of the traditional disciplines the concepts of race and computation are wholly incommensurable. Formally, race refers to a hierarchical taxonomic schema for classifying humans while computation refers to the formal mathematical logic of digital machines. I argue that race and computation share a peculiar modern conception of the body in relation to cognition. According to this modern schema one is more fully human if one appears toward the pole of the mind and therefore less or not human at all if one appears toward the pole of the body. It is this artificially strained relation between the body and the mind that had come to define the human in modernity and persists in our current epoch. In this way race became the measurement of the polarity between the mind and the body and as such the modern measure of humanity. The distinction that race makes is not lost in computation because it inherits this narrow model of the human as animal rationale and mechanizes it. I argue that this defining characteristic of the modern human as rational is both computational and racial and finds itself historically anchored in the normative conception of the human as Man [homo humanus]. My chief aim in this dissertation is not to indict modern technology as racist but to show how race and computation reveal the bipolar aspects of our normative schema for human being, one that has had a long "romance with disembodiment."1 Could both race and modern technology share a common origin in Western modernity? Could race and computation share a fundamental philosophical ground which the sciences themselves take as a priori? More urgently, what could race and modern computational machinery tell us about what it means to be human in our current age? Does the origin of the modern subject lay the framework for both the development of race and computation? 1 Evelyn Fox Keller, Secrets of Life, Secrets of Death: Essays on Language, Gender, and Science (New York, Routledge 1992), 180. 1 These radically disparate objects, race and computation, are grounded on a peculiar relationship between Man, his body, and thinking. By Man, I mean what has come to be accepted as the modern norm for human-being, the autonomous rational animal. The concept of the rational animal places thinking, the sine qua non of the secular human, in opposition to the body. The basis of my argument is that the historical idea of Man, as the secular human, had been developed through the violent devolution of bodily experience, in favor of detached calculative rationality, from which computation and race have emerged. This has placed Man over and against the natural world that extends beyond the mind, especially the body and others who are constituted outside the norm of Man. It is well known that Descartes inaugurates the modern concept of Man as the thinking subject by articulating this norm as the distinction between mind as thinking substance [res cogitans] and everything external to mind [res extensa]. I argue that this normative distinction between mind and body finds a more radical expression in Alan M. Turing's concept of the digital computer, a founding theory of computer science and information technology. On the one hand the digital computer decouples the bodily from existence, proof of the teleological development of a technological rational humanity. On the other hand, race limits existence to the bodily, as a fundamental barrier to humanity. It can be said that modern computation is the angelic ascent from one's body, while race is the hellish descent into one's body. 2 In Memory of Peter Lyman who showed me the path to thinking begins in friendship i Preface This dissertation sets out to apply some fundamental tenets of existential phenomenology to the inquiry of human identity in relation to race and modern technology. While it can be quickly ascertained that race is closely related to the problem of human identity, modern technology (particularly computational machinery) seems distant from such an inquiry and even more further afield from the idea of race. Yet simply, race and computation are historical characters in the narrative of the West's ongoing pursuit for personal existence and self-certainty. Race and computation are intimately linked to the telos of European reason. The following question could be posed: Why existential phenomenology? Why not provide a positive history of technology AND race in order to see where they may intersect? For example, why not provide a history of computing and how the racial identities of its founders impacted the design of the computer? Or how early computer manufacturers such as IBM assisted the Nazi's in developing information retrieval systems to further its genocidal campaign against Jews and so called “non- Aryans.”1 These are both valid and important topics of research but neither can reveal the basis upon which the idea of race and computation are grounded, that is, the idea of personal existence. Personal existence is normative because it asserts that in order to be human one must be actively reasoning and be certain of doing so. The uniquely European idea of the self-sufficient person as a rational animal is where the modern invention of race and the later development of computation find their unlikely origin. The theoretical concept of the digital computer descends from the traditional prejudice that human thinking is a type of interiorized mental symbol manipulation and calculation about the external world. As such, the digital computer is a mechanized model of the traditional model of the person. Moreover, two centuries before the advent of the theory of computation, race was intrinsically aligned with the history of rational personal existence because race provided a mechanism to distinguish between beings with reason and those without. The idea of the person is historical and not universal. Personal existence is captured by the normative concept of Man which modern Europeans allowed to stand-in as the universal human of all time. Both race and computation cover over the truth that the concept of Man as the human is their standard of measure. Today some have announced that Man is dead and we are now posthuman but I will show that this is a premature if not specious claim. The concept of Man has transformed into a more radical expression of calculative reason most clearly shown in the belief that the human and nature are computational, that is, comprised of hardware and software. Today the world appears as computable information. What's critical is the concept of Man still remains the hidden standard of measure for science and technology because the concept of Man has been buried deep within the artifice of the modern technological world. As such, the 1 Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust, (New York: Crown Publishers, 2001). ii concept of Man still functions as a central organizing principle of racial and technological experience. Existential phenomenology provides a way to reawaken and recover the forgotten and covered over idea of Man. First it provides a method to explicate the distinction between the human and human-being. Human-being is the way in which humans are encountered, the way humanity is perceived. The being who walked the Nile in 4000 B.C. is as human as the being who walks along the Rhine in 2011 A.D. What has changed is the epochal interpretation of human-being and not the human species. Race is a modern European facet of the perception of human-being. If we return to the question of human experience as that of encounter with the world this will, if only preliminarily, provide the existential basis in which to see how our current interpretation of the human and human-being is technological through and through. Race, as I will argue, is firstly about encounter. Race then is a way in which human-being is encountered. Encounter means how human-being is perceived in pre-objective experience. Phenomenology holds the view that all knowledge begins with perceptual encounter. Therefore phenomenological method starts from the first-person perspective. Perception is of course a widely used term in the sciences and in public discourse, often connoting the biological sensory system that delivers information to our brain which in turn are computed into meanings about the external world. In the public sense, perception can also mean opinion or appearance. However perception has a very specific meaning within phenomenology. It cannot be reduced to cognition, bio-chemical computational processes in the brain, or beliefs. Rather perception is the constitution of meaning manifest in immediate experience. From the phenomenological point of view, human perception goes straight through to the things-themselves and provides our most basic access to the world. Perceptual access is a founding access meaning that all other forms of access to objects such as reflection, epistemology, science etc.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Announcements/Chronique
    Announcements/Chronique OXFORD STUDY AIDS IN PHILOSOPHY The Department of Philosophy of the University of Calgary, Canada, is pleased to announce that the Oxford Study Aids in Philosophy Series is now printed in Calgary for distribution to Australia, New Zealand and North America. This series of selective bibliographies and short monographs is produced under the auspices of the Sub-Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Oxford, England, and was previously available only from England. The following bibliographies are presently available: I Philosophical Logic by C.A.B. Peacocke and Dana Scott, revised by Martin Davies and Graeme Forbes (3rd ed. 1979), 125 + v pp., $4.00; II Philosophy of Science by R. Harre and W. Newton-Smith (2nd ed. 1977), 69 + iv pp., $3.25; V Kant by R.C.S. Walker (2nd ed. 1978), 68 + v pp., $3.25; VI Philosophy of Mind, part 1 The Self by R.C. Lindley and J.M. Shorter (1977), 76 + iii pp., $3.25; VI Philosophy of Mind, part 2 Philosophy of Action by R.C. Lindley and J.M. Shorter (1977), 62 + iii pp., $3.25; VII Aristotle by Jonathan Barnes, Malcolm Schofield and Richard Sorabji (2nd ed. 1978), 88 + vi pp., $3.75; VIII Philosophy of Physics by W. Newton-Smith (1977), 35 4- iii pp., $2.75; IX Moral Philosophy by John Baker (1977), 144 + xviiipp.,$4.75. The following monograph is also available: Monograph I Notes on Aristotle's Metaphysics Z, recorded by Myles Burneat et al. (1979), 158 + iii pp., $4.50. The above listed prices include postage, but we ask that when orders are to be sent to the U.S.A.
    [Show full text]
  • The Implications of Neurobiology on the Study and Interpretation of Scripture
    READING THE BODY, READING SCRIPTURE: THE IMPLICATIONS OF NEUROBIOLOGY ON THE STUDY AND INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE David Cave This paper considers what the neurobiological reading of the body implies for the reading of scripture. By ‘the neurological reading of the body’ I refer to how modern science and culture draw upon cognitive science and genetics to explain and to understand what it means to be human. And by the ‘reading of scripture’ I refer to the practice of the various religious traditions to understand our humanity based on claims of inspired and revealed insights, said to come from some agency transcendent to our naturalized mind and body. I contend that within a naturalistic system these two readings are not mutually exclusive but interrelate such that the reading of one informs and illumines the reading of the other. Among many quarters, the reading of the body has come to rival, even replace, the reading of scripture (and here I refer to scripture broadly understood, of no particular religious tradition) for defining and guiding us in what it means to be a human being. In a recent opinion piece in the New York Times, columnist David Brooks, in “The Neural Buddhists,” comments on the widespread interest in neuroscience and genetics and surmises that its proponents will not so much undermine a belief in God as undermine the claims of scripture. He says, “The atheism debate is a textbook example of how a scientific revolution can change public cul- ture . and yet my guess is that the atheism debate is going to be a side- show.
    [Show full text]
  • Vietnamese Existential Philosophy: a Critical Reappraisal
    VIETNAMESE EXISTENTIAL PHILOSOPHY: A CRITICAL REAPPRAISAL A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Hi ền Thu Lươ ng May, 2009 i © Copyright 2009 by Hi ền Thu Lươ ng ii ABSTRACT Title: Vietnamese Existential Philosophy: A Critical Reappraisal Lươ ng Thu Hi ền Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Temple University, 2009 Doctoral Advisory Committee Chair: Lewis R. Gordon In this study I present a new understanding of Vietnamese existentialism during the period 1954-1975, the period between the Geneva Accords and the fall of Saigon in 1975. The prevailing view within Vietnam sees Vietnamese existentialism during this period as a morally bankrupt philosophy that is a mere imitation of European versions of existentialism. I argue to the contrary that while Vietnamese existential philosophy and European existentialism share some themes, Vietnamese existentialism during this period is rooted in the particularities of Vietnamese traditional culture and social structures and in the lived experience of Vietnamese people over Vietnam’s 1000-year history of occupation and oppression by foreign forces. I also argue that Vietnamese existentialism is a profoundly moral philosophy, committed to justice in the social and political spheres. Heavily influenced by Vietnamese Buddhism, Vietnamese existential philosophy, I argue, places emphasis on the concept of a non-substantial, relational, and social self and a harmonious and constitutive relation between the self and other. The Vietnamese philosophers argue that oppressions of the mind must be liberated and that social structures that result in violence must be changed. Consistent with these ends Vietnamese existentialism proposes a multi-perspective iii ontology, a dialectical view of human thought, and a method of meditation that releases the mind to be able to understand both the nature of reality as it is and the means to live a moral, politically engaged life.
    [Show full text]
  • A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Inquiry Into the Lived Experiences of Taiwanese Parachute Students
    A HERMENEUTIC PHENOMENOLOGICAL INQUIRY INTO THE LIVED EXPERIENCES OF TAIWANESE PARACHUTE STUDENTS By Benjamin T. OuYang Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillm ent Of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2004 Advisory Committee: Professor Francine Hultgren, Chair and Advisor Associate Professor Jing Lin Ms. Su -Chen Mao Associate Professor Marylu McEwen Dr. Maria del Carmen Torres -Queral Copyright by Benjamin T. OuYang 2004 ABSTRACT Title of dissertation: A HERMENEUTIC PHENOMENOLOGICAL INQUIRY INTO THE LIVED EXPERIENCES OF TAIWANESE PARACHUTE STUDENTS. Benjamin T. OuYang, Doctor of Philosophy, 2004 Dissertatio n directed by: Dr. Francine H. Hultgren Department of Education Policy and Leadership The purpose of this study is to understand the lived experiences of Taiwanese parachute students, so named because of their being sent to study in the United States, fr equently unaccompanied by their parents. Significant themes are revealed through hermeneutic phenomenological methodology and developed using the powerful metaphor of landing. Seven parachute students took part in several in -depth conversations with the researcher about their experiences living in the States, immersed in the English language and the American culture. Their stories are reflective accounts, which when coupled with literary and philosophic sources, reveal the essence of this experience of living in a foreign land. Voiced by teenage and young adult parachute students, the metaphor of landing as shown in their search for establishing a home and belonging, is the slate for the writing of this work’s main themes. The research opens up to a deeper understanding of this phenomenon in such themes as foreignness, landing and surveying the area; lost in the language; homesickness; and trying to establish friendships.
    [Show full text]
  • Heidegger Letter on Humanism Translation GROTH
    Martin Heidegger LETTER ON "HUMANISM"*1 Translated by Miles Groth, PhD We still by no means think decisively enough about the essence of action. One knows action only as the bringing about of an effect, the effectiveness of which is assessed according to its usefulness. However, the essence of action is perfecting <something>. Perfecting means to unfold something in the fullness of its essence, <and in so doing> to bring it forth, producere. Therefore, <the> perfectible is actually only that which already is. Yet that which above all "is," is be[-ing]. Thinking perfects the relation of be[-ing] to the essence of man. It does not make or effect this relation. Thinking only bears it as that which is handed over to be[-ing]. This bearing consists in the fact that in thinking be[-ing] comes into language. Language is the place for be[- ing]. Man lives by its accommodation. Those who are thoughtful and those who are poetic are the overseers of these precincts. Overseeing for them is perfecting the evidence of be[-ing], insofar as they bring this up in their utterances and save it in language. Thinking does not in that way just turn into action in the sense that an effect issues from it or that it is applied <to something>. Thinking acts in that it thinks. This <kind of> action is presumably the simplest and at the same time the highest because it concerns the relation of be[-ing] to man. But all effecting 1Heidegger's marginal notes in his copies of the various editions of the lecture are included in GA 9.
    [Show full text]
  • Bibliography
    BIBLIOGRAPHY PRIMARY SOURCES All references to texts in Scheler are taken from the Gesammelte Werke, brought out since 1954 by Maria Scheler, and, since 1969, by Manfred S. Frings. These are as follows: Band 1: Fruhe Schriften (1971). Edited by M. Scheler and M.S. Frings. Band 2: Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik (1954, 1966, 1980). Edited by M. Scheler. Band 3: Vom Umsturz der Werte (1955, 1972). Edited by M. Scheler Band 4: Politisch-padagogische Schriften (1982). Edited by M.S. Frings. Band 5: Vom Ewigen im Menschen (1954,1968). Edited by M. Scheler. Band 6: Schriften zur Soziologie und Weltanschauungslehre (1963, 1986). Edited by M. Scheler. Band 7: Wesen und Formen der Sympathie-Die deutsche Philosophie der Gegenwart (1973). Edited by M.S. Frings. Band 8: Die Wissensformen und die Gesellschaft (1960, 1980). Edited by M. Scheler. Band 9: Spate Schriften (1975). Edited by M.S. Frings. Band 10: Schriften aus dem NachlafJ. Band I, Zur Ethik und Erkenntnis­ lehre (1957). Edited by M. Scheler. Band II: Schriften aus dem NachlafJ. Band 2, Erkenntnislehre und Meta­ physik (1979). Edited by M.S. Frings. Band 12: Schriften aus dem NachlafJ. Band 3, Philosophische Anthro­ pologie (1987). Edited by M.S. Frings. Band 13: Schriften aus dem NachlafJ. Band 4, Philosophie und Geschichte (1990). Edited by M.S. Frings. Band 14: Schriften aus dem NachlafJ. Band 5, Varia I (1993). Edited by M.S. Frings. Band 15: Schriften aus dem NachlafJ. Band 6, Varia I (In preparation). A bibliography of translations into English of Scheler's works up to the time of its publication is found in Max Scheler.
    [Show full text]
  • Heidegger, Being and Time
    Heidegger's Being and Time 1 Karsten Harries Heidegger's Being and Time Seminar Notes Spring Semester 2014 Yale University Heidegger's Being and Time 2 Copyright Karsten Harries [email protected] Heidegger's Being and Time 3 Contents 1. Introduction 4 2. Ontology and Fundamental Ontology 16 3. Methodological Considerations 30 4. Being-in-the-World 43 5. The World 55 6. Who am I? 69 7. Understanding, Interpretation, Language 82 8. Care and Truth 96 9. The Entirety of Dasein 113 10. Conscience, Guilt, Resolve 128 11. Time and Subjectivity 145 12. History and the Hero 158 13. Conclusion 169 Heidegger's Being and Time 4 1. Introduction 1 In this seminar I shall be concerned with Heidegger's Being and Time. I shall refer to other works by Heidegger, but the discussion will center on Being and Time. In reading the book, some of you, especially those with a reading knowledge of German, may find the lectures of the twenties helpful, which have appeared now as volumes of the Gesamtausgabe. Many of these have by now been translated. I am thinking especially of GA 17 Einführung in die phänomenologische Forschung (1923/24); Introduction to Phenomenological Research, trans. Daniel O. Dahlstrom (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2005) GA 20 Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Zeitbegriffs (1925); History of the Concept of Time, trans. Theodore Kisiel (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1985) GA 21 Logik. Die Frage nach der Wahrheit (1925/26). Logic: The Question of Truth, trans. Thomas Sheehan GA 24 Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie (1927); The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, trans.
    [Show full text]
  • Beyond Westphalia: Rethinking Fundamental Ontology in IR Written by Andreas Aagaard Nohr
    Beyond Westphalia: Rethinking Fundamental Ontology in IR Written by Andreas Aagaard Nohr This PDF is auto-generated for reference only. As such, it may contain some conversion errors and/or missing information. For all formal use please refer to the official version on the website, as linked below. Beyond Westphalia: Rethinking Fundamental Ontology in IR https://www.e-ir.info/2012/07/05/beyond-westphalia-rethinking-fundamental-ontology-in-ir/ ANDREAS AAGAARD NOHR, JUL 5 2012 ‘Our task is to broaden our reasoning to make it capable of grasping what, in ourselves and others, precedes and exceeds reason’ – Maurice Merleau-Ponty[1] The Western philosophical tradition has been entrenched in a particular understanding of human beings by Plato’s love for theory. Theory, the notion that the universe can be understood in a detached and abstract way, by finding the principles that underlie the abundance of phenomena was surely powerful. And in effect, Plato held that we could have a theory of everything, even human beings and their relation to the world.[2] Man had to crawl out of the cave, where his existence had been meek shadow imagery. To be sure, this means that Plato had an implicit theory of how human beings relate to things. As such, the tradition has been build on the basic understanding of human beings as subjects contemplating, or relating to, objects. Man is a cogito, a thinking subject – a rational animal – in a world of objects. The consequence of this assumption is a categorical split between the mind and the world. So much becomes clear in the philosophy of René Descartes, who tried to doubt everything until there was only one thing he could not doubt: his own existence.
    [Show full text]
  • University of California Santa Cruz Heidegger
    UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ HEIDEGGER: ONTOLOGICAL POLITICS TO TECHNOLOGICAL POLITICS A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in PHILOSOPHY by Javier Cardoza-Kon June 2014 The dissertation of Javier Cardoza-Kon is approved: ____________________________________ Professor David C. Hoy, chair ____________________________________ Professor Abraham Stone ____________________________________ Carlos A. Sanchez, Ph.D. _____________________________ Tyrus Miller Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Copyright © by Javier Cardoza-Kon 2014 Table of Contents Abstract. iv Dedication. v Introduction. 1 Chapter 1: Cultural Identity and Two Politics. 14 Chapter 2: Polemos, Auseinandersetzung, and Unconcealment. 50 Chapter 3: Auseiandersetzung, Nietzsche, and the Politics of Nihilism. 77 Chapter 4: Technology and We Late-Moderns. 113 Conclusion: Heidegger’s in the Contemporary World. 160 Bibliography and Abbreviations of Cited Material 173 iii Abstract Heidegger: Ontological Politics to Technological Politics. By Javier Cardoza-Kon As Heidegger himself has done with Nietzsche in claiming that he will articulate what Nietzsche meant but never said metaphysically, I also do with Heidegger in terms of politics. On my reading there are two kinds of politics in Heidegger’s middle and late thought that are, for the most part, murky and confused. There is a politics of ontology the deals with the encountering and articulating of what beings are and what Being itself is. There is also a politics on the more familiar level of societies and the policies that different groups establish and follow. It is in terms of the second type of politics that Heidegger is most often attacked, and for good reason.
    [Show full text]
  • UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Intention and Normative Belief Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8725w3wp Author Chislenko, Eugene Publication Date 2016 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Intention and Normative Belief By Eugene Chislenko A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in Charge: Professor Hannah Ginsborg, Co-Chair Professor R. Jay Wallace, Co-Chair Professor Hubert Dreyfus Professor Tania Lombrozo Spring 2016 Copyright by Eugene Chislenko 2016 Abstract Intention and Normative Belief by Eugene Chislenko Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy University of California, Berkeley Professor Hannah Ginsborg and Professor R. Jay Wallace, Co-Chairs People can be malicious, perverse, compulsive, self-destructive, indifferent, or in conflict with their own better judgment. This much is obvious—but on many traditional views, it seems puzzling or even impossible. Many philosophers, from Plato and Aristotle to Kant, Davidson, and others, have thought that we act only “under the guise of the good,” doing only what we see as good, or best, or what we ought to do. These “guise-of-the-good” views offered a way to make sense of the attribution and explanation of action, while maintaining a generous view of human nature as essentially pursuing the good. But are they not hopelessly narrow and naïve? It seems clear that we often do what we do not see as good, and even what we see as bad.
    [Show full text]
  • Ontology and Ethics at the Intersection of Phenomenology and Environmental Philosophy*
    Inquiry, 47, 380–412 Ontology and Ethics at the Intersection of Phenomenology and Environmental Philosophy* Iain Thomson University of New Mexico The idea inspiring the eco-phenomenological movement is that phenomenology can help remedy our environmental crisis by uprooting and replacing environmentally- destructive ethical and metaphysical presuppositions inherited from modern philosophy. Eco-phenomenology’s critiques of subject/object dualism and the fact/value divide are sketched and its positive alternatives examined. Two competing approaches are discerned within the eco-phenomenological movement: Nietzscheans and Husserlians propose a naturalistic ethical realism in which good and bad are ultimately matters of fact, and values should be grounded in these proto- ethical facts; Heideggerians and Levinasians articulate a transcendental ethical realism according to which we discover what really matters when we are appropriately open to the environment, but what we thereby discover is a transcendental source of meaning that cannot be reduced to facts, values, or entities of any kind. These two species of ethical realism generate different kinds of ethical perfectionism: naturalistic ethical realism yields an eco-centric perfectionism which stresses the flourishing of life in general; transcendental ethical realism leads to a more ‘humanistic’ perfectionism which emphasizes the cultivation of distinctive traits of Dasein. Both approaches are examined, and the Heideggerian strand of the humanistic approach defended, since it approaches the best elements of the eco-centric view while avoiding its problematic ontological assumptions and anti-humanistic implications. I. Introduction: Uncovering the Conceptual Roots of Environmental Devastation What happens when you cross phenomenology with environmental philoso- phy? According to the editors of Eco-Phenomenology: Back to the Earth Itself, you get an important interdisciplinary movement.
    [Show full text]
  • Nousletter 2015
    Department of Philosophy Noûsletter Number 21 - Summer 2015 No. 21 · Summer 2015 noûsletter Page 2 Table of Contents Peter Hare Outstanding Assistant Awards .............. 45 Letter from the Chair ................................................................... 3 Hare Award for Best Overall Essay .............................. 46 From the Director of Undergraduate Education ........... 7 Hourani Award for Outstanding Essay in Ethics .. 46 Faculty of the Department of Philosophy ......................... 7 Perry Awards for Best Dissertation ............................. 46 In Remembrance ............................................................................ 8 Steinberg Essay Prize Winners ...................................... 46 William Baumer (1932 —2014) ....................................... 8 Whitman Scholarship Winner ........................................ 46 Newton Garver (1928 – 2014) .......................................... 9 Confucian Institute Dissertation Fellowship .......... 46 Anthony Fay (1979-2015) ................................................ 11 The People Who Make It Possible ..................................... 47 Faculty Updates ........................................................................... 12 The Peter Hare Award ........................................................ 47 Introducing Alexandra King ............................................. 12 The Hourani Lectures ......................................................... 47 Introducing Nicolas Bommarito ...................................
    [Show full text]