Earth Hour is one of the most popular environmental events in Vietnam. However, looking at the rise in electricity consumption in the country, it is impossible to feel its impact.

Following the traces of Margaret Mead’s statement that emphasized that the first photographic images of the Earth from space presented notions of fragility, the article contextualizes the recent critique of the dominant representation of the Earth as a globe that emerged in conjunction with the discourse on the Anthropocene. It analyses the globe as an image and the sentiments that accompanied it since the first photographs of our planet from space were published in 1968. The article outlines how (...) the cultural meaning of the whole Earth representation changed in parallel with the appropriation of the image by the large technological enterprises that emerged from America’s counterculture. It returns to the possibility of a coexistence of ‘views from within’ and ‘views from without’ following a detour with Gregory Bateson via Bali and proposes a Cybernetics of Grace as a practice of resistance against pure exteriority. The article concludes by linking the Cybernetics of Grace with the second-order conversations of Gordon Pask. (shrink)

In this article, we reflect on the conditions under which new technologies emerge in the Anthropocene and raise the question of how to conceptualize sustainable technologies therein. To this end, we explore an eco-centric approach to technology development, called biomimicry. We discuss opposing views on biomimetic technologies, ranging from a still anthropocentric orientation focusing on human management and control of Earth’s life-support systems, to a real eco-centric concept of nature, found in the responsive conativity of nature. This concept provides (...) the ontological and the epistemological condition for an eco-centric concept of biomimetic technologies in the Anthropocene. We distinguish five principles for this concept that can guide future technological developments. (shrink)

A look at the nature of the universe, God, and our place within it explores the transformational role of consciousness in all human enterprise, offering inspirational insights into questions about religion, human existence, and good and evil.

In this paper, we argue that the Anthropocene is relevant for philosophy of technology because it makes us sensitive to the ontological dimension of contemporary technology. In §1, we show how the Anthropocene has ontological status insofar as the Anthropocenic world appears as managerial resource to us as managers of our planetary oikos. Next, we confront this interpretation of the Anthropocene with Heidegger’s notion of “Enframing” to suggest that the former offers a concrete experience of Heidegger’s abstract, notoriously difficult, and (...) allegedly totalitarian concept. In consequence, technology in the Anthropocene cannot be limited to the ontic domain of artefacts, but must be acknowledged to concern the whole of Being. This also indicates how the Anthropocene has a technical origin in an ontological sense, which is taken to imply that the issue of human responsibility must be primarily understood in terms of responsivity. In the final section, we show how the Anthropocene is ambiguous insofar as it both accords and discords with what Heidegger calls the “danger” of technology. In light of this ambiguity, the Earth gains ontic-ontological status, and we therefore argue that Heidegger’s unidirectional consideration concerning the relation between being and beings must be reoriented. We conclude that the Anthropocene entails that Heidegger’s consideration of the “saving power” of technology as well as the comportment of “releasement” must become Earthbound, thereby introducing us to a saving Earth. (shrink)

what is the ontology of planets?Our access point to this question is the ontology of planet Earth. Although the presence of life marks planet Earth as special among other planets, Earth shares a basic commonality with them – namely, its material existence. We take this commonality as a point of departure for our reflections on the ontology of both planet Earth and other planets. In this chapter, we ask for the ontology of this materiality of planets. (...) We consult the ontology of planet Earth as I developed it in an earlier contribution (Blok, 2019), explore the ontology of planets as absolute boundary of the natural habitats on Earth, and reflect on the opportunities and limitations such ontology provides for future human colonies on other planets. (shrink)

Critically engaging the work of Immanuel Kant, Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger, and Jacques Derrida together with her own observations on contemporary politics, environmental degradation, and the pursuit of a just and sustainable world, Kelly Oliver lays the groundwork for a politics and ethics that embraces otherness without exploiting difference. Rooted firmly in human beings' relationship to the planet and to each other, Oliver shows peace is possible only if we maintain our ties to earth and world. Oliver begins with (...) Immanuel Kant and his vision of politics grounded on earth as a finite surface shared by humans. She then incorporates Hannah Arendt's belief in plural worlds constituted through human relationships; Martin Heidegger's warning that alienation from the Earth endangers not only politics but also the very essence of being human; and Jacques Derrida's meditations on the singular worlds individuals, human and otherwise, create and how they inform the reality we inhabit. Each of these theorists, Oliver argues, resists the easy idealism of world citizenship and globalism, yet they all think about the earth against the globe to advance a grounded ethics. They contribute to a philosophy that avoids globalization's totalizing and homogenizing impulses and instead help build a framework for living within and among the world's rich biodiversity. (shrink)

Climate change education (CCE) and environmental education (EE) seek ways for us humans to keep inhabiting Earth. We present a thought experiment adopting the perspective of Earth-settlers, aiming to illuminate the planetary mass of technology. By elaborating Hannah Arendt’s notion of ‘earth alienation’ and Bruno Latour’s notion of technology as ‘missing mass’, we suggest that, in the current Anthropocene era, our relation to technology should be a crucial theme of CCE and EE. We further suspect that sustainable (...) development (SD) and the education promoting it (ESD) are problematic, because the green growth proposed is inextricably linked to the unattainable goal of decoupling growth from environmental impact. We therefore suggest education for post-sustainability (EPS) that critically re-evaluates the connections between technology and sustainability. But can educators critically question technology, since educational institutions seem to be unconditionally committed to promoting technological progress? While tracing this professional dilemma, we call for educational responsibility and autonomy to question technology when it is at odds with sustainability. To this end, we outline technological literacy that introduces the arts of (a) seeing technology, (b) living with technology, and (c) delegating or sustainably assimilating technology. (shrink)

Earth consciousness involves an understanding of our relationship with earth. It involves the study of earth forms, their life processes and inherent needs. The concept has created a field of frameworks and knowledge systems permeating into the day to day lives of humans including their political-economic-cultural spaces. The expression earth consciousness can be interpreted in many ways to include human awareness of nature & its processes, or the bond with mother earth and all its forms (...) . Earth consciousness or the universal respect for nature and all of its forms is manifesting in different ways. The multidisciplinary approaches that build the idea of Earth consciousness have added much weight to building frameworks for protection & preservation. One can see an influence of cultural, ethical, legal, philosophical, religious, & spiritual perspectives in the realization of a deep & meaningful relationship between humans with nature. This document sheds light on the diverse frameworks evolved and evolving to give effect to the growing earth consciousness. Much emphasis also placed on the "Rights in Nature Framework" and the "Post 2020 Bio-diversity Framework". (shrink)

The Anthropocene concept arose within the Earth System science community, albeit explicitly as a geological time term. Its current analysis by the stratigraphical community, as a potential formal addition to the Geological Time Scale, necessitates comparison of the methodologies and patterns of enquiry of these two communities. One means of comparison is to consider some of the most widely used results of the ESS, the ‘planetary boundaries’ concept of Rockström and colleagues, and the ‘Great Acceleration’ graphs of Steffen and (...) colleagues, in terms of their stratigraphical expression. This expression varies from virtually non-existent to pronounced and many-faceted, while in some cases stratigraphical proxies may help constrain anthropogenic process. The Anthropocene concepts of the ESS and stratigraphy emerge as complementary, and effective stratigraphic definition should facilitate wider transdisciplinary communication. (shrink)

The environmental crisis is global in scope, yet contemporary environmental ethics is centered predominantly in Western philosophy and religion. _Earth's Insights_ widens the scope of environmental ethics to include the ecological teachings embedded in non-Western worldviews. J. Baird Callicott ranges broadly, exploring the sacred texts of Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Taoism, Confucianism, and Zen Buddhism, as well as the oral traditions of Polynesia, North and South America, and Australia. He also documents the attempts of various peoples to put their environmental ethics (...) into practice. Finally, he wrestles with a question of vital importance to all people sharing the fate of this small planet: How can the world's many and diverse environmental philosophies be brought together in a complementary and consistent whole? (shrink)

Radical ecology typically brings to mind media images of ecological activists standing before loggers' saws, staging anti-nuclear marches, and confronting polluters on the high seas. Yet for more than twenty years, the activities of organizations such as the Greens and Earth First! have been influenced by a diverse, less-publicized group of radical ecological philosophers. It is their work—the philosophical underpinnings of the radical ecological movement—that is the subject of _Contesting Earth's Future_. The book offers a much-needed, balanced appraisal (...) of radical ecology's principles, goals, and limitations. Michael Zimmerman critically examines the movement's three major branches—deep ecology, social ecology, and ecofeminism. He also situates radical ecology within the complex cultural and political terrain of the late twentieth century, showing its relation to Martin Heidegger's anti-technological thought, 1960s counterculturalism, and contemporary theories of poststructuralism and postmodernity. An early and influential ecological thinker, Zimmerman is uniquely qualified to provide a broad overview of radical environmentalism and delineate its various schools of thought. He clearly describes their defining arguments and internecine disputes, among them the charge that deep ecology is an anti-modern, proto-fascist ideology. Reflecting both the movement's promise and its dangers, this book is essential reading for all those concerned with the worldwide ecological crisis. (shrink)

This article explores the interconnectedness of the earth, gender and food security in the Zambian context using the narrative of Maria Zaloumis (a female Zambian farmer) in the public sphere. It draws on a narrative research design by the restorying of Maria’s trajectory in Agric-business as informed by the African ecofeminist theory. The study shows that Maria was described as an emerging young farmer and an emblem of female entrepreneurship. Her trajectory mirrored the intersection of the earth, gender (...) and food security through her portrayal as a woman who endured life tragedies of losing a child, and being a victim of gender-based violence in her marriage. She drew inspiration from her mother (venturing into farming was linked to her mother), the earth (farming was an outlet for healing from her marital challenges) and religion (attributed her success to God as a member of the Baptist church). Maria’s account which resonates with the injustice suffered by the earth and shared by women through the environmental crises affirms that in the midst of suffering, women could still contribute to food security by turning a crisis into an opportunity and fostering a life-affirming theology.Contribution: The article contributes to scholarship on the earth, gender and food security by bringing to the fore the ways in which women have contributed to changing the Agric-business landscape through the intersection of the earth, gender and religion from the Zambian context. It also adds a new perspective to women’s empowerment and the preservation and stewardship of mother earth. (shrink)

For courses in Earth Science, Physical Geology, Physical Geography, Earth System Science and Environmental Philosophy. This collection of essays by scholars in both the earth sciences and philosophy discusses the connections between the earth sciences and contemporary culture, and the changing role of the earth sciences in society.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Mother Earth, Mother City:Abjection and the AnthropoceneJanell WatsonIf the term “Anthropocene” designates the global influence of the human species over its terrestrial habitat, then its arrival profoundly changes a number of relations that have long occupied Western philosophy: that between humans and animals; between humans and nature; and between humans and their technologies. The possibility that humans have transformed not only the biology but also the geology of (...) the earth brings to the forefront the physical world, whose corporeal materiality was all but ignored by mid-twentieth-century continental philosophy, focused almost exclusively on language and politics. As Michel Serres put it in 1990, “Our a-cosmic philosophies, for almost half a century now, have been holding forth only on language or politics, writing or logic” (1995b, 29). Technicians and scientists have created a new world, observes Serres, while philosophers act as if they still live in the old one (2001, 4). By the time Paul Crutzen and Eugene F. Stoermer formally introduced the term “Anthropocene” in 2000 (Crutzen and Steffen, 2003), Serres had developed a philosophy for the new human-dominated techno-scientific world. It is true that the physical world has in the meanwhile reappeared in continental philosophy thanks to object-oriented philosophy and various new materialisms, but Serres was among the first to formulate into a philosophical question the human impact on the physical and biological earth (2014, 63). He may well have been the very first to develop a philosophy of pollution. Serres complains that Plato, one of the few Western philosophers to even mention detritus, excludes residue and waste from metaphysics (2001, 185). Garbage, atmospheric emissions, and toxic waste not [End Page 269] only threaten life, but are also transforming biological and geological features of the earth. The philosophical dimension of pollution will be the topic of my paper.Philosophy has remained silent on this question of waste, with the notable exception of Julia Kristeva, whose theory of abjection brought the body and its discharges back into philosophy at the height of the linguistic turn. Although she presents abjection as a psychic formation, she derives the notion from the physical reaction of repugnance, vomiting, retching, and turning away when confronted with “filth, waste, or dung” and “defilement, sewage, and muck” (1982, 2). Both Serres and Kristeva portray pollution and abjection as remainders left behind by a subject-object dialectic that positions (male) humans as subjects, and everything else (and everyone) as objects to be mastered and appropriated. They both locate this oozing dialectic in Plato’s semiotic khôra, the mother’s womb. Read together, these philosophers of pollution expose the “materialist foundation” of “dialectical logic” by way of the maternal body (Kristeva 1984, 15). Kristeva focuses on the mother in order to demonstrate a corporeal basis for language and subjectivity. Although he shares the view that language comes from the body, Serres celebrates the womb as the first human habitat. He emphasizes the maternal functions of the earth: neonatal incubator, nurturer, habitat.However, waxing poetic about the sea, the riverside, and the wilderness, Serres writes very little about cities, even though they are the preferred human habitat of the new epoch. I therefore extend his reflections on human habitation in the Anthropocene epoch by considering the maternal aspects of the global megalopolis, which simultaneously sustains domestic life and produces deadly pollution. The maternal functions of reproduction, nourishment, and shelter are pushing the limits of the earth’s physical capacities. Maternity thus lies at the heart of the problem of the Anthropocene: the possibility that human domination of the earth will deplete its ability to sustain life.MatrixAlthough he grounds his philosophy in complexity, chaos, narrative, and anthropology, in his 1990 manifesto, The Natural Contract, Serres argues that science and technology have brought about a subject-object reversal between the human species and the earth (1995b). He bases his argument on a dialectical model in order to expose a struggle for domination, the classical confrontation between master and slave. Serres credits Descartes with foreseeing from his vantage point at the dawn of the scientific age that humans would go on to “dominate and appropriate” the natural world according... (shrink)

A brief account of Putnam's Twin Earth thought experiment and its significance, written for a general audience. Sadly, I can't include Helen De Cruz's drawing of it - check out the beautiful book!

The concept of yinyang lies at the heart of Chinese thought and culture. The relationship between these two opposing, yet mutually dependent, forces is symbolized in the familiar black and white symbol that has become an icon in popular culture across the world. The real significance of yinyang is, however, more complex and subtle. This brilliant and comprehensive analysis by one of the leading authorities in the field captures the richness and multiplicity of the meanings and applications of yinyang, including (...) its visual presentations. Through a vast range of historical and textual sources, the book examines the scope and role of yinyang, the philosophical significance of its various layers of meanings and its relation to numerous schools and traditions within Chinese philosophy. By putting yinyang on a secure and clear philosophical footing, the book roots the concept in the original Chinese idiom, distancing it from Western assumptions, frameworks and terms, yet also seeking to connect its analysis to shared cross-cultural philosophical concerns. (shrink)

Larry L. Rasmussen offers a dramatic new way of thinking about human society, ethics, and the health of our planet. Rejecting the modern ethical assumption that morality applies to human society alone, Earth-honoring Faith argues that we must derive a system of ethics and morality that accounts for the wellbeing of all creation on Earth.

Karoline von Günderrode (1780–1806) has long enjoyed a reputation as a Romantic poet, but her philosophical contributions have largely been neglected. This paper is one of the first to address Günderrode’s political thought, especially her view of the interrelationship between human society and the broader environment. The paper argues that Günderrode develops resources for reconceiving the relationship of human beings to the nonhuman and to each other that work against an instrumentalizing view of nature and programmatic political ideals. Günderrode’s normative (...) restraint, concept of harmony, and view of human beings as part of and the same in kind as the rest of nature contribute to a vision of sociality, grounded in her metaphysics, that envisions small communities fostering connections between human beings and the nonhuman. On Günderrode’s model, these connections can grow and strengthen and eventually, perhaps, enable the emergence of the single, perfect organism that she calls the “realized idea of the earth.”. (shrink)

This chapter argues that the Earth King of Ba Sing Se, King Kuei, willfully maintained ignorance of the true state of his kingdom so that he could enjoy the privileges that came with his position, while remaining derelict in his duty to his people. The King maintains this ignorance at the expense of his people, both by condoning certain urban designs and by resisting knowledge that upsets his lifestyle. When the Avatar team first arrive at Ba Sing Se in (...) “City of Walls and Secrets,” Joo Dee tells them that the city has many walls and each wall serves a purpose, but people know there is more to the walls than their utility. This chapter looks at the ways that urban design promote artificial social homogeneity and prevent cross‐economic and cultural socialization. (shrink)

... EARTH AND GODS AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF Martin Heidegger the language of science ...

An account of the conflict between our positive and negative emotional relationships to the Earth and how they will be resolved for the Symbiocene, the next period in the history of the Earth.

The empirical turn, understood as a turn to the artifact in the work of Ihde, has been a fruitful one, which has rightly abandoned what Serres and Latour call “the empire of signs” of the postmoderns. However, this has unfortunately implied too little attention for language and its relation to technology. The same can be said about the social dimension of technology use, which is largely neglected in postphenomenology. This talk critically responds to Ihde and Stiegler, and sketches a Wittgensteinian (...) inroad to a more holistic and transcendental revision of postphenomenology which does not turn away from the artifact but places it in a wider social context and asks the question regarding the relation between language and technology. Finally, since the earth may be the ultimate condition of possibility, it is asked what this language-sensitive and transcendental approach may imply for rethinking our human position and agency in the Anthropocene. The paper ends with pointing to the role of language as transcendental condition that shapes the very project of thinking the “Anthropocene.”. (shrink)

This article aims at contributing to the contemporary reception of Heidegger’s thought in eco-philosophical perspective. Its point of departure is Heidegger’s claim, in his Bremen lectures and The Question Concerning Technology, that today the earth is submitted to permanent requisition and planned ordering, and that, having thus lost sight of its auto-poiesis, we are no longer capable of listening, tuning in, and singing back to what he calls in his course on Heraclitus the “song of the earth.” Accordingly, (...) first we examine how the inherently reciprocal dynamics of “earth” and “world,” as thematised by Heidegger in The Origin of the Work of Art, have become opaque. Second, we analyse whether it is possible to find those same dynamics at play behind Heidegger’s “Fourfold,” which we propose to reread in binary key in dialogue with contemporary anthropology, from Bateson and Lévi-Strauss to Wagner and Viveiros de Castro, and in light of Guattari’s notion of “trans-entitarian generativity.” Third, we stress the need to reposition Heidegger’s thought alongside contemporary concerns on “worlding” and we explore its plausible intersections with today’s object-oriented ethnography. Lastly, we discuss the possibility of rereading Heidegger’s Fourfold afresh against the backdrop of Heidegger’s non-foundational thinking, as a conceptual metaphor for the joint dynamics of Abgrund and Grund. (shrink)

The earth is not just a piece of rock, water and soil; she is a living being. This fact is demonstrated by millennia of her life‘s history, growing in ages, having tempers, moods and seasons, and allowing all forms of life living on her and interacting with them and their interactions. Recent natural disasters and accidents, caused by humans in their drive to cultivate and to control, have again brought the powers of the earth and the land to (...) our attention. A new dimension in the visions and virtues of cultivation needs to extend on a global scale the Hippocratic ‗do no harm‘ virtue and principle from the singular doctor-patient interaction towards all forms of life, including the life of the earth.This paper interprets the Bioethical Imperative, developed by Fritz Jahr in 1927, into land ethics and earth ethics; it also discusses the concept of cultural geography of Ernst Kapp, 1845 in Germany, and the land ethics of Aldo Leopold, 1949 in the USA. Of particular new moral and cultural concern is the risk of radiation to the genetic heritage of all forms of life, to livable biotopes and interactive environments. The Bioethical Imperative includes Land Ethics and the Earth: ―Respect mother earth with all her forms of life, whether natural or man-made, basically as goals in themselves and treat them, if possible, as such.‖“The guiding rule for our actions may be the Bioethical Demand: Respect every living being on principle as an end in itself and treat it, if possible, as such!”- Fritz Jahr. (shrink)

By considering another version of the Inverted Earth thought experiment in which the protagonist is informed that she is implanted with inverting lenses behind her eyes, I argue that the thought experiment doesn’t successfully pose a challenge to representationalism because after many years, the protagonist’s visual experience of the sky of Inverted Earth would simply represent it as blue.

The environmental crisis is global in scope, yet contemporary environmental ethics is centered predominantly in Western philosophy and religion. _Earth's Insights_ widens the scope of environmental ethics to include the ecological teachings embedded in non-Western worldviews. J. Baird Callicott ranges broadly, exploring the sacred texts of Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Taoism, Confucianism, and Zen Buddhism, as well as the oral traditions of Polynesia, North and South America, and Australia. He also documents the attempts of various peoples to put their environmental ethics (...) into practice. Finally, he wrestles with a question of vital importance to all people sharing the fate of this small planet: How can the world's many and diverse environmental philosophies be brought together in a complementary and consistent whole? (shrink)

It is widely believed that Twin-Earth-style thought experiments show that the contents of a person's thoughts fail to supervene on her intrinsic properties. Several recent philosophers have made the further claim that Twin-Earth-style thought experiments produce metaphysically necessary conditions for the possession of certain concepts. I argue that the latter view is false, and produce counterexamples to several proposed conditions. My thesis is of particular interest because it undermines some attempts to show that externalism is incompatible with privileged (...) access. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 21.1 (2001) 114-116 [Access article in PDF] The Earth Charter: Buddhist and Christian Approaches Bill Aiken Soka Gakkai International Seattle, Washington, is well known as the home of the coffee renaissance that swept across America in the 1980s and 1990s. Its hometown favorite, The CoffeeBrand, first appeared in 1971 in an open-air farmers' market; the popular round, green logo now seems to appear on the streets (...) of every city and suburb of the world.But what really impresses the visitor to the Seattle-Tacoma area is not The Coffee; it's The Mountain. When you look to the southeast, it rises there, big and craggy and snow-covered, and alone. It dominates the horizon. Even when you're not looking at it, or when it's obscured by the morning haze, you feel its presence. The Mountain... that's what the locals call it, as if it were the only one in the world.Those of us from other parts of the country call it Mount Rainier, but it looms large just the same. And from August 5 through 12, it seemed to watch over us like an expectant teacher as we convened on the wooded campus of Pacific Lutheran University for the Sixth International Conference of the Society of Buddhist-Christian Studies (SBCS). More than 170 scholars, students, and practitioners (and scholar-practitioners and practitioner-students) joined in a week of dialogue, study, and reflection on the theme "Buddhism, Christianity, and Global Healing."The conference opened with blessings from both the Buddhist and Christian traditions and with musical performances representing the traditions of the West--the passionate resonance of the pipe organ; and East--the evocative sounds of the simple bamboo shakuhachi.Boston Research Center (BRC) founder and president of Soka Gakkai International, Daisaku Ikeda, sent a congratulatory message to the gathering praising their efforts and noting the key areas in which Christianity and Buddhism can make important complementary contributions to the issues facing the world.The theme of global healing provided an excellent opportunity to focus on the Earth Charter. Under the title "Spirituality and the Earth Charter: Buddhist and Christian Approaches," co-chairs Professor Jay McDaniel, of Hendrix College, and BRC Executive DirectorVirginia Straus assembled a rich program of presentation and dialogue, which included some of the most renowned scholars, activists, and scholar-activists of the Earth Charter movement. [End Page 114]Professor Mary Evelyn Tucker, of Bucknell University, began by introducing the Earth Charter not as a document but as a living movement, whose activities are inspired by the ideals and guidelines contained within the charter. Dr. Tucker, who played an active role in the shaping of the charter, spoke of how the input of various constituencies (indigenous peoples, developing economies, businessmen, political leaders, and yes, lawyers) was solicited, considered, and, where appropriate, given voice in the charter. She noted that we now have what will be--more or less--the final form of the charter. Our next step is to make it come alive in our behavior as individuals, communities, businesses, and nations.Virginia Straus spoke of the contributions of the global Buddhist community to the Earth Charter process. It began with Professor Steven Rockefeller's call for participation, which in turn led to contributions by prominent Buddhist leaders and scholars to the charter language, scholarly and grassroots consultations, publications by the Buddhist Peace Foundation (BPF) and the BRC, and the efforts of Buddhist organizations and engaged scholars to build grassroots support for the charter. Straus noted that the charter now reflects central Buddhist beliefs, with its clear recognition of interdependency and its emphasis on a change of mind or heart, and on "becoming more" rather than "acquiring more."Jay McDaniel rounded out the Earth Charter introduction by providing a very personal Christian perspective, giving special attention to those elements of the charter that speak to the human soul. As an example, he highlighted the broad spiritual and moral vision contained in Article 16(f) defining peace as "the wholeness created by right relationships with oneself, other persons, other cultures, other life, Earth, and the... (shrink)

While the scientific discourse on astrobiology—the study of the origin, evolution, and distribution of life in the universe—leans toward optimism about the possibility of extraterrestrial life, optimistic thinking is tempered by the limits of evidence and observations gathered thus far. Most astrobiologists assume that “first contact” with extraterrestrial life, if it is ever to occur, will likely be the discovery of microbial life elsewhere in our solar system. But in popular culture, “first contact” tends to be characterized as contact with (...) extraterrestrial intelligence. This article will touch on theory and research relating to the origins and evolution of life and intelligence on Earth and speculation about extraterrestrial life and intelligence. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I attempt to provide some new evidence in favour of the claim that meaning is normative—specifically, for the claim that semantic judgments or ascriptions of meaning are action-guiding. I attempt to achieve this by developing an analogue of the Moral Twin Earth argument advanced by Horgan and Timmons which I call the ‘Meaning Twin Earth’ argument. In the course of the dissertation, I outline Kripke’s 1982 sceptical argument for the thesis that there are no meaning (...) facts in virtue of which ascriptions of meaning are true or false and highlight how the claim that meaning is normative is necessary for that argument to succeed with the kind of generality that Kripke intends. I then explain how one of Kripke’s main arguments against dispositionalist accounts of meaning can be viewed as a kind of open question argument. This argument is ultimately a failure, but nonetheless, I argue that the argument can be revised in a way that does pose a genuine threat to dispositionalist accounts of meaning by using an analogue of Horgan and Timmons’ Moral Twin Earth argument. I claim that a Meaning Twin Earth scenario yields linguistic intuitions that, in my view, are best explained by invoking the claim that meaning is normative. These intuitions constitute evidence against both reductive dispositionalism and anti-normativism about meaning. I forestall several potential objections to the Meaning Twin Earth argument drawn from Plunkett and Sundell, Copp, Merli, and Baker. In closing, I consider two broad options for a normativist account of semantic judgment: an expressivist form and a rationalist form. I argue that, provisionally, McDowell’s rationalist version of factualism about meaning faces a less serious challenge than Gibbard’s expressivist alternative. (shrink)

This essay introduces the themes that motivate the three articles that follow. Their common aim is to explore the connections between the Earth Charter and the concept of biodemocracy with the intention of highlighting ways of thinking about the relationship between science, religion, and the environment in the twenty-first century. Informed by the science of ecology and written by scholars of religion, the articles included here seek to integrate movements and ideas as diverse as postmodern thought, the much-debated thought (...) of Lynn White, jr. , and the synergy emerging between the Earth Charter and Journey of the Universe. (shrink)

Earth system science (ESS) has identified worrying trends in the human impact on fundamental planetary systems. In this conceptual article, we discuss the implications of this research for business schools and management education (ME). We argue that ESS findings raise significant concerns about the relationship between business and nature and, consequently, a radical reframing is required to embed economic and social activity within the global sustainability of natural systems. This has transformative implications for ME. To illustrate this reframing, we (...) apply the ESS lenses of social-ecological interdependence, multiscalar relations, environmental governance, and environmental values to the ME functional domains of institutional purpose, social context and engagement, pedagogical practice, curricular design, and research focus. Our work contributes to the literature on business education for sustainability and the business-society-nature nexus. We explore and apply key ESS findings and concepts, discuss normative implications of these ideas, and offer guidance on transformational pathways for business schools and ME. (shrink)

Entranced Earth looks at audiovisual, literary, performative, and testimonial sources to examine the impact of neocolonial extractivist industries on the natural environment in the Western Hemisphere.

The gift of death and the new magic of politics: Hegel and Tolkien on sorcery and secondary worlds -- The political theology of catastrophe: Plato's Athenian Atlantis, Tolkien's Númenoran Atalantë, and the Nazi Reich -- Burglar and bourgeois? Bilbo Baggins' dialectical ethics -- Hobbes, Hobbits, and the modern state of Mordor: myths of power and desire in Leviathan and Tolkien's Legendarium -- Middle-earth and the return of the common good -- Epilogue: from apocalypse to eucatastrophe: "The end of history," (...) happy endings, and the politics of narrative form. (shrink)

This article puts into conversation Friedrich Nietzsche’s perspectivism and a particular expression of “African animism,” drawn from my ethnographic fieldwork in Ghana. Nietzsche’s perspectivism extends interpretation beyond the human species into natural processes. Like perspectivism, African animism troubles the binaries—body/soul, nature/culture—that permeate anthropocentric thinking. Human-nonhuman relations are refigured as socio-ecological relations: the earth may be regarded as life-generating ancestors; baobab trees may approach humans as kin. These two images of the world intersect, but they do not mesh together. Nietzsche (...) adopts perspectivism as active intersections between dynamic processes, within an open universe that has not been predesigned for humans. Animism tends toward a world of personalized relationships that would reach harmony if we would only lighten our ecological footprint. I draw upon such resonances to advance a new ethic of experiential environmentalism that treats ecological threats as lived risks and shared experiences with a lively and communicating “environment.”. (shrink)

Downs, Stephen Review(s) of: Earthly visions: Theology and the challenges of art, by T.J. Gorringe, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2011), pp. 254, $55.00.

Responding to claims of Anthropocene geoscience that humans are now geological agents, social scientists are calling for renewed attention to the social, cultural, political and historical differentiation of the Anthropos. But does this leave critical social thought’s own key concepts and categories unperturbed by the Anthropocene provocation to think through dynamic earth processes? Can we ‘socialize the Anthropocene’ without also opening ‘the social’ to climate, geology and earth system change? Revisiting the earth science behind the Anthropocene thesis (...) and drawing on social research that is using climatology and earth systems thinking to help understand socio-historical change, this article explores some of the possibilities for ‘geologizing’ social thought. While critical social thought’s attention to justice and exclusion remains vital, it suggests that responding to Anthropocene conditions also calls for a kind of ‘geo-social’ thinking that relates human diversity and social difference to the potentiality and multiplicity of the earth itself. (shrink)

A rich and multi-stranded sociology of sporting embodiment has begun to emerge in recent years. Calls have been made to analyze more deeply not only the sensory dimensions of lived sporting bodies but also the values prevailing within particular physical–cultural worlds. This article contributes to a small, developing research corpus by employing theoretical perspectives drawn from phenomenological sociology to explore cross-country runners' sensory encounters with the elemental, contoured by the values of the running lifeworlds they inhabit. Autoethnographic and autophenomenographic data (...) were collected via three research projects. Senses of touch still remain under-researched within the sporting sensorium, and here we focus on the “elemental haptics” of earth and air on our cross-country training runs. We also explore the rich, complex somatic experiences afforded by various of these elemental combinations. For runners, as for many sports participants, the haptic emerges as a key aspect of our sensuous running lifeworld. (shrink)

Hilary Putnam's Twin Earth thought experiment has come to have an enormous impact on contemporary philosophical thought. But while most of the discussion has taken place within the context of the philosophy of mind and language, Terence Horgan and Mark Timmons (H8cT) have defended the intriguing suggestion that a variation on the original thought experiment has important consequences for ethics.' In a series of papers, they' ve developed the idea of a Moral Twin Earth and have argued that (...) its significance is that it has the resources to undermine naturalistic versions of moral realism.' H8t T don't hold back in their assessment. "Moral Twin.. (shrink)

For Christians, a strange dislocation often seems to exist between the ecological crisis and a heritage that includes a Creator God. This book turns to the prophetic tradition - a tradition generated in the dislocation of crises in the past. Drawing this tradition into engagement with the ecological humanities, and with ministry studies, the author discovers root memories that hold. Here is wisdom and that could unleash our passion and energy by challenging us to attend to Earth's cry.