I demonstrate here how Aristotle's teleological conception of nature has been largely misunderstood in the scientific age and I consider what his view might offer us with regard to the environmental challenges we face in the 21st century. I suggest that in terms of coming to an ethical understanding of the creatures and things that constitute the ecosystem, Aristotle offers a welcome alternative to the rather instrumental conception of the natural world and low estimation of subjective experience our contemporary techno-scientific (...) culture espouses. Among other things, I consider how his conception of orexis and eudaimonia might be extended to include the eco-system itself, thus allowing us to better understand the moral meaning of nature. I conclude with a look at the way in which modern phenomenology re-addresses the fundamental Greek concern with ontology, meaning and human authenticity. I consider the ways in which phenomenology reasserts the value of direct human experience that was so important to Aristotle; and I consider how this view, and that of Deep ecology, may help us to experience nature - and all of Being for that matter - in a more authentic, meaningful and altogether ethical light. (shrink)

La idea de progreso es una de las nociones más influyentes, pero también más polémicas, del mundo moderno. Ello se debe en buena medida al carácter ideológico que subyace a su empleo en diferentes contextos. En este artículo se examinan cuatro paradojas que ha generado la aplicación de la idea de progreso, cuyos efectos negativos se hacen sentir cada vez con más fuerza hoy en día. Se muestra también cómo esta idea, pese al creciente descrédito que la rodea, continúa ejerciendo (...) una poderosa influencia en la vida contemporánea. (shrink)

If akrasia is acting against reason, then we might say that we are now in an akratic situation with regard to climate change. Indeed, we recognize its existence and give great credit to the sciences concerned, and climate skeptics are few. But our actions waver between non-existence and inadequacy. Why? In fact, trust in science is undermined by a discrediting of reason. « Technique » is overvalued for better or for worse, and the ethics of its choices forgotten. The recourse (...) to politics obscures the decisive importance of society, as this crisis affects everyone's private behavior. Finally, fear and mistrust prevent us from calmly accepting the uncertainty inherent in knowledge and life. How might we correct this akrasia? By returning to a fallibilist, realistic epistemology, based on truth, on the objectivity of facts, and supported by an exercise of intellectual virtues. (shrink)

La idea de progreso es una de las nociones más influyentes, pero también más polémicas, del mundo moderno. Ello se debe en buena medida al carácter ideológico que subyace a su empleo en diferentes contextos. En este artículo se examinan cuatro paradojas que ha generado la aplicación de la idea de progreso, cuyos efectos negativos se hacen sentir cada vez con más fuerza hoy en día. Se muestra también cómo esta idea, pese al creciente descrédito que la rodea, continúa ejerciendo (...) una poderosa influencia en la vida contemporánea. (shrink)

Volume 24, Issue 5, October 2019, Page 3-10.

La revendication contemporaine d'un respect de la nature trouve dans le thème du droit animal une de ses applications concrètes, que ce droit soit entendu comme un « droit naturel » appliqué au vivant en général ou bien comme un droit positif régissant des conduites nouvelles au sein de la communauté des êtres naturels. Le droit, défini comme une émanation d'un «humanisme» possessif, est sommé de valider une nouvelle échelle des êtres, de traduire, par le bouleversement de sa notion même (...) de « sujet », un regard sur le vivant qui ne soit pas normé par l'anthropocentrisme de la métaphysique. Dans ce débat, c'est bien la banalisation puis la suppression du sujet en général qui se joue derrière la promotion d'un concept plastique et instrumental du sujet de droit. Le conflit des droits de l'homme et du droit à la vie comme telle n'est pas un problème de société, mais un de ceux qui montrent l'actualité et l'urgence de poser à nouveau la question de l'homme, de sa différence spécifique brouillée et contestée. (shrink)

This article focuses upon the construction of wants and the embodying of the market in the work routines of workers on the Swiss foreign exchange market. The authors are particularly concerned with the role of the computer screen within the establishment of postsocial relations around a sense of embodied lack. The screen does not provide access to the market but is the market as an exteriorized assemblage of practices brought together in one place. The screen is the (ontologically liquid) market (...) rather than its representation into which traders immerse themselves. Traders engage with this market in their daily work practices through a constructed sense of lack that requires them to act passionately within the market in order to satisfy the self understood as a structure of wanting. While Knorr Cetina and Bruegger draw on a Lacanian understanding of the self as lack, rather than focus on the formation of direct human social relations around this issue, they look instead at the materiality of lack and its position within the postsocial relations constituted through trading online in the foreign exchange market. Desire is constituted and realized here through the object of the computer screen rather than with other people directly. In this way relations between persons are mediated by real objects that constitute persons virtually. (shrink)

The question of how the university can relate to the world is centuries old. The poles of the debate can be characterized by the plea for an increasing instrumentalization of the university as a producer and provider of useful knowledge on the one hand (cf. the knowledge factory), and the defense of the university as an autonomous space for free inquiry and the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge’s sake on the other hand (cf. the ivory tower). Our current global predicament, (...) however, forces us to rethink the relation between university and world. Indeed, an easy nstrumentalization of the university for the purposes of society is no longer possible in troubled times when the future of society itself seems to be at stake. Nevertheless, urgent societal concerns do need to be addressed by the university. Hence, the disinterested position seems a highly irresponsible option. The aim of this dissertation is to reconsider the relation between the university and the world from an educational perspective by addressing the question “How to situate study in the relation between university and society?” The dissertation consists of three parts. In Part One, the existing literature on the relation between university and society will be discussed. The first chapter discerns two main approaches to this issue, namely the transcendental-philosophical approach (cf. the idea of the university) and the critical-sociological approach (cf. academic capitalism) that conceive of the university, respectively, as an idea and as an organization. By means of an excursus on the emergence of the university in the Middle Ages, the case is made for an ecological approach to the university. In the second chapter, the work of two authors who have recently adopted such an ecological approach is briefly presented. Whereas Ronald Barnett’s theory of the ecological university is situated more in the transcendental-philosophical tradition, Susan Wright’s investigations of the university in the knowledge ecology can be placed in the critical-sociological tradition. Both conceptions, however, are hinged on an institutional understanding of the university. In line with recent developments in social theory, namely the focus on practices, it is proposed to work towards an ecology of study practices. Part Two presents Isabelle Stengers’ idea of the ecology of practices. The third chapter elucidates Stengers’ work on scientific practices by first situating it within the so-called Science Wars, which provided the impetus to elaborate a theoretical framework for a civilized dialogue between scientists and the broader public. The basic tenets and concepts of her approach, such as the understanding of practice as a set of requirements and obligations, are presented, explained, and discussed. In the fourth chapter, the focus shifts from scientific practices to study practices. Assisted by Stengers’ writings on Whitehead’s speculative philosophy, this chapter aims to flesh out Whitehead’s description of the university as a ‘home of adventures’ in order to come to an educational understanding of the study practices of the university. A conceptual inquiry into how study practices activate certain worldly problems and turn them into matters of study is presented. Part Three develops the conceptual work on study practices further in relation to the activities of the Palestinian experimental university Campus in Camps. Chapter Five presents the work of Campus in Camps and explains how it relates to the theoretical discussion offered in the second part. On the basis of Stengers’ conception of practice, which discerns requirements and obligations as vital ingredients, this chapter argues that life in exile is what drives the study practices of Campus in Camps, and hence, that it is the issue of life in exile that participants are obligated to when they study. Whereas Chapter Five is focused on what is being studied in Campus in Camps, Chapter Six inquires in to the specific requirements its activities need to fulfill in order to be study practices; in other words, how the participants study. Four requirements are discerned that, taken together, seem indispensable to understand the study practices of Campus in Camps; namely, storytelling, comparing, mapmaking, and using. The concluding chapter returns to the research question and again takes up the main ideas developed in the dissertation, such as the adventure of study and the cohabitation of scientific and study practices in the university. The last two sections of the conclusion deal with two remaining issues of a more practical nature; namely, how to relate to institutionalization when working from a practice-theoretical point of view, and lastly the question of what can be done. In all, and returning to the initial problem, the dissertation asks what it means to conceive of the university as situated by and engaged with worldly questions. (shrink)

This research attempts to throw light on and show the fundamental similarities and differences between the African and Western ethical conceptions by examining the foundation of ethics and morality in the two systems, using the Golden rule principle in African ethics and Kant’s categorical imperative in Western ethics as tools of comparative analysis. The African indigenous ethics revolves round the “Golden Rule Principle” as the ultimate moral principle. This principle states that “Do unto others what you want them to do (...) unto you”. This principle compares favourably with Immanuel Kant’s whose main thrust is found in his “Categorical Imperative”, with the injunction for us to “Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” The categorical imperative becomes for Kant, the principle of universalizability, which according to Kant, is categorical and must be equally binding on everyone. This idea of Kant, we argue, compares with the “Golden Rule Principle”. Both are rationalistic and social but the limitations of Kant which we hope to point out, make it quite insufficient as the foundation of morality. The Africans’ which is more humanistic describes morality and is better served. The main difference between the two ethical systems lies in the fact that whereas the “golden rule” starts from the self and considers the consequences on the first before others, the universalizability principle on the other hand considers the consequences on others first before self. (shrink)