In this important new book, leading Black philosopher Mabogo More reflects on his life and career in apartheid South African. The book explores Africana existentialism in relation to issues of race, identity, liberation, freedom, alienation, responsibility and bad faith and includes key essays from More's corpus alongside his philosophical memoir.

Exploring the implications of Sartre’s existentialism for the problem of racism, a prominent African philosopher provides the ontological basis for understanding the situation of a black person in an antiblack world.

This chapter contains sections titled: Institutionalized Philosophy Philosophy Before Apartheid Philosophy During Apartheid African Philosophy in South Africa Philosophy in Post‐Apartheid South Africa Conclusion.

Biko was not only considered a 'brilliant political theorist', he is also considered a formidable and articulate philosopher; an important Africana existential philosopher. From Biko's writings, speeches and interviews, Mabogo More's view is that philosophy is not a disembodied system of ideas nor is it a mechanical reflection about the world; rather, it is a way of existing and acting. What Biko himself describes as 'a way of life'. This important perspective on Biko would be of value to (...) many African philosophers, political and social thinkers, social scientists, psychologists, cultural critics, political activists, students, critical race theorists and anyone interested in the ideas that Biko presents. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Question of Violence in South Africa Albert Luthuli Nelson Mandela Steve Biko Conclusion.

How should black people, indeed any other group of people in general, respond when they are grouped together and oppressed on the basis of the contingency of their physical characteristics? Questions of liberation from oppression involve questions about the means to overcome that oppression. Throughout the ages of struggle against racial oppression, for example, collective black identity and solidarity has been one of the favourite responses and rallying call for racial justice and liberation. In South Africa this response has recently (...) emerged through the formation of a number of highly controversial groups such as: The Native Club, The African Forum, and The Forum for Black Journalists. Critics of these formations think that such black solidarity, divisive, irrational, morally objectionable and, above all, racist. This paper defends the emancipatory racial solidarity tradition, examplified by The Native Club and similar constituted organisations, against such serious charges and critiques mounted by contemporary leading thinkers on identity. The tools for such a defense are primarily derived from Jean-Paul Sartre's conception of group formation in his Critique Of Dialectical Reason. I argue that since anti-black racist consciousness always operates at the level of collectives, it is therefore impossible to fight such racism as an individual; that collective black solidarity is a necessary condition for racial emancipation. (shrink)

South African philosopher Mabogo Percy More has devoted more than four decades of his work to the problem of “being-black-in-an-antiblack-world.” This article interrogates the extent to which More homogenizes the contingencies of black2 existence and black embodiment, as I feel black existentialists do; or subsumes the phenomenology of the lived experience of blackness under a “black universalist” account that does not give an adequate account of the gendered embodied experiences with antiblack racism. By “contingency” I mean (...) More’s concept of the contingency of existence, where he claims that human existence is without necessity, nor is it justified; and so people resort to attempting to justify their existence and to find meaning by trying to assume the status of God or superiority in relation to others. More argues that contingency is the source of antiblack racism, as white people attempt to justify their existence by dehumanizing black people. I claim that contingency does not only play out in the interracial domain, but is also one of the sources of intraracial sexism within the black community. My interrogation aims to extend the reach of More’s work by giving an existential-phenomenological account of “being-black-and-female-in-an-antiblack-antifemale-world.” To this end, I focus on two contingencies—the contingencies of biological sex and the contingency of physical strength—that More discusses in his sole article on intraracial sexism, “Black Attitudes: A Call for Personhood” (1981). I argue that within the black intraracial domain, these two contingencies are ascribed meaning that creates a binary, which elevates black men to superior status, while reducing black women to the inferior. (shrink)

This is the first book-length work to focus on the philosophical and anthropological contribution of Mabogo More, a prominent and influential black South African existentialist thinker.

Stefan Sorgner (2009) says that on becoming familiar with transhumanism, he “immediately thought that there were many fundamental similarities between transhumanism and Nietzsche’s philosophy, especially concerning the concept of the posthuman and that of Nietzsche’s overhuman.” In contrast to Bostrom (2005), Sorgner sees significant and fundamental similarities between the posthuman and the overhuman. (I will adopt his use of “overhuman” in place of “overman” or Übermensch.) This overall view seems to me highly plausible. I agree with most of Sorgner’s comments (...) in this respect. My intent is to give further support to the conceptual parallels. In addition, I argue that these are not merely parallels: transhumanist ideas were directly influenced by Nietzsche. (shrink)

Selections from the philosophical writings of More: The antidote against atheism.--The immortality of the soul.--Enchiridion metaphysicum.

pt. 1. Chapters 1-10 and 27-28 -- pt. 2. Chapters 11-26.

_“This translation offers a fresh and vital encounter with Thomas More’s _Utopia_ for a twenty-first century audience.”—Elizabeth McCutcheon, _Utopian Studies__ Saint Thomas More’s _Utopia_ is one of the most important works of European humanism and serves as a key text in survey courses on Western intellectual history, the Renaissance, political theory, and many other subjects. In _Utopia_, More introduces the mysterious traveler Raphael Hythloday, who tells of an island nation that he considers the most perfectly organized and (...) harmonious in the world. Preeminent More scholar Clarence H. Miller does justice to the full range of More’s rhetoric in this masterful translation. In an Afterword to this edition, Jerry Harp contextualizes More’s life and _Utopia_ within the wider frames of European humanism and the Renaissance. (shrink)

Nietzsche's Ecce Homo was published posthumously in 1908, eight years after his death, and has been variously described ever since as useless, mad, or merely inscrutable. Against this backdrop, Nicholas D. More provides the first complete and compelling analysis of the work, and argues that this so-called autobiography is instead a satire. This form enables Nietzsche to belittle bad philosophy by comic means, attempt reconciliation with his painful past, review and unify his disparate works, insulate himself with humor from (...) the danger of 'looking into abysses', and establish wisdom as a special kind of 'good taste'. After showing how to read this much-maligned book, More argues that Ecce Homo presents the best example of Nietzsche making sense of his own intellectual life, and that its unique and complex parody of traditional philosophy makes a powerful case for reading Nietzsche as a philosophical satirist across his corpus. (shrink)

This book tells the story of seven new letters from Sir Thomas More to Frans van Cranevelt that were discovered among a bundle of letters that were auctioned in London in 1989, part of the private archive of Cranevelt. The letters span the years 1519–1522.

This edition will include all of More's extant works. Each volume will be edited by a specialist in the field of Renaissance studies and will include a comprehensive introduction. Latin texts will be accompanied by a facing English translation.

Two algebraic structures, the contrapositionally complemented Heyting algebra (ccHa) and the contrapositionally |$\vee $| complemented Heyting algebra (c|$\vee $|cHa), are studied. The salient feature of these algebras is that there are two negations, one intuitionistic and another minimal in nature, along with a condition connecting the two operators. Properties of these algebras are discussed, examples are given and comparisons are made with relevant algebras. Intuitionistic Logic with Minimal Negation (ILM) corresponding to ccHas and its extension |${\textrm {ILM}}$|-|${\vee }$| for c|$\vee (...) $|cHas are then investigated. Besides its relations with intuitionistic and minimal logics, ILM is observed to be related to Peirce’s logic and Vakarelov’s logic MIN. With a focus on properties of the two negations, relational semantics for ILM and |${\textrm {ILM}}$|-|${\vee }$| are obtained with respect to four classes of frames, and inter-translations between the classes preserving truth and validity are provided. ILM and |${\textrm {ILM}}$|-|${\vee }$| are shown to have the finite model property with respect to these classes of frames and proved to be decidable. Extracting features of the two negations in the algebras, a further investigation is made, following logical studies of negations that define the operators independently of the binary operator of implication. Using Dunn’s logical framework for the purpose, two logics |$K_{im}$| and |$K_{im-{\vee }}$| are discussed, where the language does not include implication. The |$K_{im}$|-algebras are reducts of ccHas and are different from relevant algebraic structures having two negations. The negations in the |$K_{im}$|-algebras and |$K_{im-{\vee }}$|-algebras are shown to occupy distinct positions in an enhanced form of Dunn’s kite of negations. Relational semantics for |$K_{im}$| and |$K_{im-{\vee }}$| is provided by a class of frames that are based on Dunn’s compatibility frames. It is observed that this class coincides with one of the four classes giving the relational semantics for ILM and |${\textrm {ILM}}$|-|${\vee }$|⁠. (shrink)

To write of “the” philosophy of transhumanism is a little daring. The growth of transhumanism as a movement and philosophy means that differing perspectives on it have formed.

Aristippus.--Epicurus.--Cynics and Stoics.--Epictetus.--Plotinus.--Diogenes.--Scepticism.--Appendix[es] A-E.

The three Socratic theses.--The Socratic quest.--The Platonic quest.--The Socratic paradox: the dualism of Plato.--Psychology.--The doctrine of ideas.--Science and cosmogony.--Metaphysics.--Conclusion.

The article proposes Logic of Secrets in Collaboration Networks, a formal logical system for reasoning about a set of secrets established over a fixed configuration of communication channels. The system’s key feature, a multi-channel relation called independence, is a generalization of a two-channel relation known in the literature as nondeducibility. The main result is the completeness of the proposed system with respect to a semantics of secrets.

Wootton's translation brings out the liveliness of More's work and offers an accurate and reliable version of a masterpiece of social theory. His edition is further distinguished by the inclusion of a translation of Erasmus's 'The Sileni of Alcibiades,' a work very close in sentiment to Utopia, and one immensely influential in the sixteenth century. This attractive combination suits the edition especially well for use in Renaissance and Reformation courses as well as as for Western Civilization survey courses. Wootton’s (...) Introduction simultaneously provides a remarkably useful guide to anyone’s first reading of More’s mysterious work and advances an original argument on the origins and purposes of Utopia which no one interested in sixteenth-century social theory will want to miss. (shrink)

The chapter outlines Nietzsche's view of decadence, its history and effects. The philosopher held decadence to be any condition, deceptively thought good, which limits what something or someone can be. This concept informs his critical and affirmative projects, acting as a versatile tool to identify and overcome his own decadence and to resist the decadence of Western culture. Decadence appears in five major areas of concern to Nietzsche: physiology; psychology; art and artists; politics; and philosophy. Physical and mental phenomena provide (...) the substrate of his understanding, but they manifest in cultural, political, and philosophical forms that, in turn, affect the body and mind. In each of the five areas, the concept of decadence for Nietzsche serves 1) to unmask valued cultural phenomena as corrupt, 2) to name and analyze degenerate effects, and 3) to spur reflection on how to respond. (shrink)

October 14, 2007: Studying how a broker's brain works. swissinfo. "To help maintain its competitive edge, the Swiss banking industry is investing heavily in financial engineering. Its latest recruit is economist Peter Bossaerts. swissinfo talked to Bossaerts, a leading expert in neuroeconomics – the study of how we make financial choices - about his recent appointment as professor at the Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne.... swissinfo: So what exactly is neuroeconomics? Peter Bossaerts: It's a mixture of decisional theory - (...) mathematical theories applied in risk-based decision-making - and neuroscience.... Neurofinance, therefore, tries to understand how choices are made in a risky world. It looks closely at the workings of the brain while taking into account human emotions.... swissinfo: What is the aim of your work? P.B.: Firstly, to make progress on how people make choices when dealing with risk.... Neuroeconomics should also help improve decisional theory, which doesn't work in the real world where rules are vague and probabilities are unknown. The aim is to build up artificial intelligence based on a theory where decision-making is repeated." >>> Neuroscience, Cognitive Science, Finance & Investing, Applications. (shrink)

This essay will argue for the centrality of empathy in the doctor-patient relationship — as a core of ethically sound, responsible therapeutics. By empathy, I intend an explicitly hermeneutic practice, informed by a reflexive understanding of patient and self. After providing an overview of the history of the concept of empathy in clinical medicine, I discuss current definitions and the use of Balint groups in residency training as a way to develop empathic competence in novice physicians.

O presente artigo contempla a contextualização da educação superior na contemporaneidade, seus desafios e exigências demandados pelos novos tempos e espaços de formação em relação aos estudos da Educação a Distância (EaD) e aos avanços frente aos processos de ensino e aprendizagem em EaD. Este estudo é parte da investigação qualitativa realizada junto aos cursos de Pedagogia EaD da Universidade de Caxias do Sul (UCS) e da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). O lastro teórico que embasou esta (...) investigação foram os estudos apresentados por Belloni (2003), Litwin (2001), Leite (2002), Sancho (2006) e outros. Os resultados da pesquisa apontam que a EaD, mediada pelas tecnologias, apresenta características que propõem avanços aos processos de ensino e aprendizagem dessa modalidade, produzindo mudanças na cultura dos sujeitos, tornando os autônomos, participativos e integrantes da cultura digital. (shrink)