Philosophy of Ecological Crisis and Two Forms of Modern Dialectics
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The Philosophy of Ecology As a Specific and Direct Method of Ecological and Humanistic Research and Management
Envigogika: Charles University E-journal for Environmental Education ISSN 1802-3061 The Philosophy of Ecology as a Specific and Direct Method of Ecological and Humanistic Research and Management Lubov Vladyková Envigogika 10 (4) – Reviewed Papers/ Recenzované články Published/ Publikováno 4. 12. 2015 DOI: 10.14712/18023061.498 Abstract The philosophy of ecology is an intersectional, multi-discursive foundation, which co- vers a vast area characterised by an extensive research agenda, connecting a number of established scientific disciplines. It is our aim to highlight the interdisciplinary character of the problem under discussion, as well as the fact that different conceptions of the philosophy of ecology would be hard to sustain and difficult to respect if they did not respond to the findings of the latest research, be it in the field of ecology or in the field of philosophy. In order to be able to envisage a future for the Earth that would be sustainable in the long term, we need knowledge and we need to internalise a method for evaluating information that would enable us to discard irrelevant information in times of critical change. Key words philosophy of ecology, ecological science, ecological problem Abstrakt Filozofická reflexia ekológie predstavuje prienikovú polydiskurzívnu bázu – čo značne rozširuje priestor s rozsiahlou výskumnou agendou, prechádzajúcou vedecky etablovanými oblasťami. Naším cieľom je upozorniť na interdisciplinárny charakter skúmanej problematiky, ako aj na skutočnosť, že koncepcie filozofie ekológie by boli ťažko obhájiteľné a rešpektované bez reflexie výsledkov súčasného vedeckého poznania tak v oblasti ekologických vied ako aj filozofie. Aby sme mohli plánovať dlhodobo udržateľnú budúcnosť Zeme, potrebujeme ve- domosti a potrebujeme integrovať spôsob, ktorým sú informácie ohodnotené, a ktorým sú neprínosné informácie odmietané v obdobiach kritickej zmeny. -
Anarchy in the PA? Anti-Essentialism, Anti-Statism, and the Future of Public Administration
CONFERENCE DRAFT This paper is not intended for general circulation and may not be cited without the permission of the author. Anarchy in the PA? Anti-Essentialism, Anti-Statism, and the Future of Public Administration Thomas J. Catlaw Assistant Professor School of Public Affairs Arizona State University 411 North Central Avenue Mail Code 3720, Suite 450 Phoenix, AZ 85004 Email: [email protected] Phone (602) 496-0459 Paper prepared for presentation at the “Public Administration and Anti-Essentialism” Conference, Florida Atlantic University, Fort Lauderdale, FL—March 2-3, 2007 Introduction Authority has been an ongoing focus of scholarly and intellectual investigation for nearly entirety of modern social science. In sociology, this concern can be tracked from Weber’s famous typologies and Durkheim’s exposition of anomie, a state induced by the decline of regulative authority relations, through the 1960’s “twilight of authority” (Nisbet, 1975) and the contemporary declaration of a “post-traditional” order (Giddens, 1994). Authority has also received enormous consideration in political science and political philosophy (Agamben, 2005; Arendt, 1958; Benne, 1943; DeGeorge, 1985; Engles, 1978; Flathman, 1980; Friedrich, 1972; Laski, 2000/1919; Lowi, 1970; McKercher, 1989), anthropology (W. B. Miller, 1955; Turner, 1969), organizational sociology (Blau, 1968; Dalton, Barnes, & Zaleznik, 1973/1968; Meyer, 1972), psychology (Kelman & Hamilton, 1989), and a wide range of provocative interdisciplinary legal, political, and psychological perspectives (Diggins & Kann, 1981; Friedrich, 1958; Horkheimer, 1972; Lincoln, 1994; Pennock & Chapman, 1987; Sennett, 1980). The literature on the topic is internally contradictory and voluminous—not withstanding the fact that consideration of authority readily expands into equally nebulous and complex concepts such as power, legitimacy, the state, and the nature of social order itself with no obvious analytic or historical limit. -
ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: for the END IS a LIMIT
ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: FOR THE END IS A LIMIT: THE QUESTION CONCERNING THE ENVIRONMENT Ozguc Orhan, Doctor of Philosophy, 2007 Dissertation Directed By: Professor Charles E. Butterworth Department of Government and Politics Professor Ken Conca Department of Government and Politics This dissertation argues that Aristotle’s philosophy of praxis (i.e., ethics and politics) can contribute to our understanding of the contemporary question concerning the environment. Thinking seriously about the environment today calls for resisting the temptation to jump to conclusions about Aristotle’s irrelevance to the environment on historicist grounds of incommensurability or the fact that Aristotle did not write specifically on environmental issues as we know them. It is true that environmental problems are basically twentieth-century phenomena, but the larger normative discourses in which the terms “environmental” and “ecological” and their cognates are situated should be approached philosophically, namely, as cross-cultural and trans-historical phenomena that touch human experience at a deeper level. The philosophical perspective exploring the discursive meaning behind contemporary environmental praxis can reveal to us that certain aspects of Aristotle’s thought are relevant, or can be adapted, to the ends of environmentalists concerned with developmental problems. I argue that Aristotle’s views are already accepted and adopted in political theory and the praxis of the environment in many respects. In the first half of the dissertation, I -
An Introduction to Philosophy
An Introduction to Philosophy W. Russ Payne Bellevue College Copyright (cc by nc 4.0) 2015 W. Russ Payne Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document with attribution under the terms of Creative Commons: Attribution Noncommercial 4.0 International or any later version of this license. A copy of the license is found at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ 1 Contents Introduction ………………………………………………. 3 Chapter 1: What Philosophy Is ………………………….. 5 Chapter 2: How to do Philosophy ………………….……. 11 Chapter 3: Ancient Philosophy ………………….………. 23 Chapter 4: Rationalism ………….………………….……. 38 Chapter 5: Empiricism …………………………………… 50 Chapter 6: Philosophy of Science ………………….…..… 58 Chapter 7: Philosophy of Mind …………………….……. 72 Chapter 8: Love and Happiness …………………….……. 79 Chapter 9: Meta Ethics …………………………………… 94 Chapter 10: Right Action ……………………...…………. 108 Chapter 11: Social Justice …………………………...…… 120 2 Introduction The goal of this text is to present philosophy to newcomers as a living discipline with historical roots. While a few early chapters are historically organized, my goal in the historical chapters is to trace a developmental progression of thought that introduces basic philosophical methods and frames issues that remain relevant today. Later chapters are topically organized. These include philosophy of science and philosophy of mind, areas where philosophy has shown dramatic recent progress. This text concludes with four chapters on ethics, broadly construed. I cover traditional theories of right action in the third of these. Students are first invited first to think about what is good for themselves and their relationships in a chapter of love and happiness. Next a few meta-ethical issues are considered; namely, whether they are moral truths and if so what makes them so. -
CHAPTER 2.1 Augustine: Commentary
CHAPTER 2.1 Augustine: Commentary Augustine Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis (henceforth Augustine) was born in 354 A.D. in the municipium of Thagaste (modern day Souk Ahras, Algeria, close to the border with Tunisia). He died in 430, as the Arian1 Vandals besieged the city of Hippo where he was bishop, marking another stage in the demise of the Roman Empire. Rome had already been sacked in 410 by Alaric the Visigoth, but the slow decline of Roman grandeur took place over a period of about 320 years which culminated in 476 when Romulus Augustus, the last Emperor of the Western Roman Empire, was deposed by Odoacer, a Germanic chieftain. Augustine thus lived at a time which heralded the death knell of the ancient world and the beginnings of mediaeval western European Christendom.2 Augustine‘s great legacy to western civilization is that intellectually he united both worlds in drawing from the ancient thought of Greece and Rome and providing a Christian understanding of the intellectual achievements of the ancients. His new synthesis is a remarkable achievement even today and for those of us, who remain Christians in the West, our debates, agreements and disagreements are still pursued in Augustine‘s shadow.3 1 Arianism was a schismatic sect of Christianity that held the view that the Second Person of the Trinity, Christ, is created and thus does not exist eternally with the Father. 2 See J. M. Rist‘s magnificent Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003. Rist notes that, ‗Despite his lack of resources he managed to sit in judgment on ancient philosophy and ancient culture.‘ p. -
Chapter 4 Multifaceted Ecology Between Organicism, Emergentism and Reductionism Donato Bergandi1 the Classical Holism-Reductioni
Chapter 4 Multifaceted Ecology Between Organicism, Emergentism and Reductionism Donato Bergandi1 The classical holism-reductionism debate, which has been of major importance to the development of ecological theory and methodology, is an epistemological patchwork. At any moment, there is a risk of it slipping into an incoherent, chaotic Tower of Babel. Yet philosophy, like the sciences, requires that words and their correlative concepts be used rigorously and univocally. The prevalent use of everyday language in the holism-reductionism issue may give a false impression regarding its underlying clarity and coherence. In reality, the conceptual categories underlying the debate have yet to be accurately defined and consistently used. There is a need to map out a clear conceptual, logical and epistemological framework. To this end, we propose a minimalist epistemological foundation. The issue is easier to grasp if we keep in mind that holism generally represents the ontological background of emergentism, but does not necessarily coincide with it. We therefore speak in very loose terms of the “holism-reductionism” debate, although it would really be better characterised by the terms emergentism and reductionism. The confrontation between these antagonistic paradigms unfolds at various semantic and operational levels. In definitional terms, there is not just emergentism and reductionism, but various kinds of emergentisms and reductionisms. In fact, Ayala (1974; see also Ruse 1988; Mayr 1988; Beckermann et al. 1992; Jones 2000) have proposed a now classic trilogy among various semantic domains – ontology, methodology and epistemology. This trilogy has been used as a kind of epistemological screen to interpret the reductionist field. It is just as meaningful and useful, however, to apply the same trilogy to the emergentist field. -
Environmental Philosophy: Beyond Environmental Ethics
Environmental Philosophy: Beyond Environmental Ethics Mark Colyvan* Abstract: There are many interesting philosophical issues associated with the science and policy of conserving our natural environment. Despite much of the philosophical work being passed off as environmental ethics, it is clear that the issues in question go well beyond anything that can reasonably be thought of as belonging to environmental ethics. A great deal of the philosophical work required involves epistemology and decision theory. Moreover, this is no mere terminological issue. Misconstruing the nature of the issues in question, and the tools available to deal with them, can result in sub- optimal environmental outcomes. Once we disentangle the various philosophical issues in question, the proper role of environmental ethics, and environmental philosophy more generally, becomes clearer. The central focus of environmental ethics ought to be that of how to implement ethical environmental strategies in the face of uncertainty—uncertainty both about how the world is and about the relevant values. But the proper representation of the uncertainties in question is the business of epistemology, and the proper framework for making the decisions in question is the business of decision theory. Thinking that either of these latter issues falls within the purview of environmental ethics is a dangerous mistake. Environmental ethics concerns itself with ethical issues arising from the relationship between humans and the natural environment. Of particular interest are ethical considerations in relation to human efforts to conserve the natural environment. Some of the key environmental ethics issues are whether environmental value is intrinsic or instrumental, whether biodiversity is valuable in itself or whether it is an indicator of some other value(s), and what the appropriate time scale is for conservation planning. -
Critique of Pure Reason the Dialectic
Critique of Pure Reason the Dialectic Immanuel Kant 1781 Copyright © Jonathan Bennett 2017. All rights reserved [Brackets] enclose editorial explanations. Small ·dots· enclose material that has been added, but can be read as though it were part of the original text. Occasional •bullets, and also indenting of passages that are not quotations, are meant as aids to grasping the structure of a sentence or a thought. Each four-point ellipsis . indicates the omission of a brief passage that seems to present more difficulty than it is worth. Longer omissions will be reported between square brackets in normal-sized type. This version follows (B) the second edition of the Critique, though it also includes the (A) first-edition version of the Paralogisms of Pure Reason. Undecorated marginal numerals refer to page-numbers in B; ones with an ‘A’ in front refer to A, and are given only for passages that don’t also occur in B. The likes of ..356 in the margin mean that B356 (or whatever) started during the immediately preceding passage that has been omitted or only described between square brackets. These marginal numerals can help you to connect this version with other translations, with the original German, and with references in the secondary literature. Cross-references to other parts of this work include the word ‘page(s)’, and refer to numbers at the top-right corner of each page.—The Transcendental logic divides into the Transcendental analytic, which started on page 45, and the Transcendental dialectic, which starts here. First launched: January 2008 Critique. Dialectic Immanuel Kant Contents Introduction 155 1. -
Kant's Account of the Rational Sources of Metaphysics in The
CON-TEXTOS KANTIANOS. International Journal of Philosophy N.o 10, Diciembre 2019, pp. 235-239 ISSN: 2386-7655 Doi: 10.5281/zenodo.3583193 Kant’s Account of the Rational Sources of Metaphysics in the Transcendental Dialectic of the Critique of Pure Reason RUDOLF MEER• Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, Russia Review of: Willaschek, M., Kant on the Sources of Metaphysics. The Dialectic of Pure Reason. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2018, pp. 308. ISBN-13: 978- 1108472630. The Transcendental Dialectic is an insufficiently studied section of the Critique of Pure Reason. This is surprising given that Division Two of the Transcendental Logic forms the largest part of Kant’s first critique. If the doctrine is systematically considered, then Kant’s critique of the metaphysica specialis—that is, rational psychology, rational cosmology, and rational theology—is at the core of the investigations (Willaschek 2018, p. 11). And in fact, the emphasis seems to be on the destruction of the unconditioned objects, God, world, and soul. In this sense, the Transcendental Dialectic would be a long Appendix to the Transcendental Analytic and the Transcendental Aesthetic, in which Kant dissociates himself once again from the metaphysical tradition and his philosophical opponents, in order to legitimize indirectly the previous analysis. Kant gives unambiguous hints for understanding the architectonic of the Critique of Pure Reason in this sense, by classifying the Transcendental Analytic as Logic of Truth and the Transcendental Dialectic as Logic of Illusion. Hence, Kant’s early critics had determined that Kant neither has a positive dialectic theory nor a concept of system, and this is a point of view which is frequently repeated in subsequent writings. -
The Science of the Struggle for Existence on the Foundations of Ecology
P1: FpQ CY239/Cooper-FM 0 52180432 9 July 29, 2003 15:6 The Science of the Struggle for Existence On the Foundations of Ecology GREGORY J. COOPER Washington and Lee University v P1: FpQ CY239/Cooper-FM 0 52180432 9 July 29, 2003 15:6 published by the press syndicate of the university of cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom cambridge university press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia Ruiz de Alarcon´ 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa http://www.cambridge.org c Gregory J. Cooper 2003 This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2003 Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge Typeface Times Roman 10.25/13 pt. System LATEX 2 [TB] A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data Cooper, Gregory John. The science of the struggle for existence : on the foundations of ecology / by Gregory Cooper. p. cm – (Cambridge studies in philosophy and biology) Includes bibliographical references (p. ). ISBN 0-521-80432-9 1. Ecology – Philosophy. I. Title. II. Series. QH540.5.C66 2003 577–dc21 2002041441 ISBN 0 521 80432 9 hardback vi P1: FpQ CY239/Cooper-FM 0 52180432 -
Kant in the Dialectics of Enlightenment* Brian O’Connor (University College Dublin)
Kant in the Dialectics of Enlightenment* Brian O’Connor (University College Dublin) In Dialektik der Aufklärung discussions of Kant’s ideas feature more than those of any other philosopher. Those discussions, however, rarely attempt to understand the argumentative structure of Kant’s philosophy. Kant’s ideas are invoked largely as an aide to gaining greater insight into the broader phenomenon of the evolution of modern reason. The text’s treatment of Kant’s work is, as a consequence, fragmentary and partial. Neither scholarly accuracy nor systematic reconstruction plays a role in Horkheimer and Adorno’s methodology. Sometimes Kant is presented as an important though typical enough enlightenment thinker, as blind as any other to the destructive power of totalizing reason. Yet Kant’s concepts of “synthesis” and “schematism” are also highlighted as amongst the most radical efforts to ground the Enlightenment interest in the mastery of nature. The text returns frequently to these concepts. Only occasionally are there acknowledgements that Kant’s conception of the limits of knowledge might actually separate him from a single-tracked scientistic rationalism. Perhaps the most critical assessment of Kant found in Dialektik der Aufklärung comes in the shape of associations made between Kant’s moral rigorism and the amoralism promoted in Sade’s Juliette. In order to gain an overview of the various uses to which Kant is put in Dialektik der Aufklärung this chapter will focus on the two most substantial topics. First is the relationship between transcendental idealism and enlightenment rationality. This topic will bring us to Horkheimer and Adorno’s interpretation of synthesis, schematism and the transcendental unity of apperception. -
Philosophy of Ecology ENVS 410/510, BI 410/510 MW 2:00 - 3:50, 301A Allen CRN: 36606, Spring 2010
Welcome to Philosophy of Ecology ENVS 410/510, BI 410/510 MW 2:00 - 3:50, 301A Allen CRN: 36606, Spring 2010 Brendan Bohannan Ted Toadvine Office: 309 Pacific Hall Office: 329 PLC Phone: 541-346-4883 Phone: 541-346-5554 Email:[email protected] Email: [email protected] Office Hours: W 4:00 - 5:30 Office Hours: TR 10:30 - 12:00 About the Philosophy of Ecology Many of the greatest challenges facing society today involve our relationship to the natural world. How do we as individuals and a society respond to a changing environment? What can we do to manage our impact on the natural systems that sustain life? How can we continue to develop economically while ensuring that our children inherit a planet that is livable? The science of ecology is one of the fundamental sources of information regarding our relationship to the natural world. Our course will focus on how ecological knowledge is developed. How do we know what we know about nature? Our course will also introduce students more generally to the philosophy of science. The science of ecology poses a number of very interesting and central questions in the philosophy of science. Ecology is a relatively new field of science, and has been called the most “intractable of the biological sciences.” Ecologists struggle with the metaphysical character of the entities they study, with the use and misuse of metaphor and analogy, and with defining clear intellectual boundaries. Ecologists are also faced with the same fundamental issues that all scientists face, such as the how to balance rationalism and empiricism, the conflict between reductionism and holism, the nature of scientific “law”, and the use and abuse of theory.