Each thinker, according to Heidegger, essentially thinks one thought. Plato thinks the idea. Descartes thinks the cogito . Spinoza thinks substance. Nietzsche thinks the will to power. If a thinker does not think a thought, then he or she is not a thinker. He or she may be a scholar or a professor, a producer or a consumer, a fan or a fake, but he or she would not be a thinker. Thus, if Heidegger is a thinker, he essentially thinks (...) one thought. What is Heidegger’s one thought? It is neither life nor death, neither me nor you. It is neither technology nor art. It is neither spirit nor language. Heidegger’s one thought is being—or more precisely, the question of the meaning of being. And what is being? Neither presence nor absence--but rather, an ambiguous uncertainty. (shrink)

REVIEW (1): "Jeff Kochan’s book offers both an original reading of Martin Heidegger’s early writings on science and a powerful defense of the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) research program. Science as Social Existence weaves together a compelling argument for the thesis that SSK and Heidegger’s existential phenomenology should be thought of as mutually supporting research programs." (Julian Kiverstein, in Isis) ---- REVIEW (2): "I cannot in the space of this review do justice to the richness and range of Kochan's (...) discussion [...]. There is a great deal in this foundational portion of Kochan's discussion that I find tremendously interesting and engaging [...]." (David R. Cerbone, in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science) ---- REVIEW (3): "Science as Social Existence will be of interest not only to Heidegger scholars but to anyone engaged in science and technology studies. [...] This is an informative and original book. Kochan should be praised for his clear, pleasant-to-read prose." (Michael Butler, in CHOICE). (shrink)

In this paper, I consider Heidegger's call for the recapturing of radical techne or "the original Greek essence of science" because, he argues, it reminds us of our tragic impotence in the face of nature—that humans are in the throws of a fate beyond their determination. For Heidegger, our thinking, our building, our politics, and our art must be episphalês (precarious and prone to fall)—that is, its aim must not be to protect against or hide from, but to stand firm (...) against the collapse and confusion of Western thinking and civilization. (shrink)

Until recently, there has been relatively little self-conscious reflection - from either environmental or continental philosophers - on the specific contributions which continental philosophy, insofar as it is a distinctive tradition, might make to environmental thought. This situation has begun to change with several recent publications, such as Charles S. Brown and Ted Toadvine's edited collection Ecophenomenology: Back to the Earth Itself, and Bruce V. Foltz and Robert Frodeman's collection Rethinking Nature: Essays in Environmental Philosophy. This special issue aims to (...) continue the discussion of how the continental tradition might advance or transform environmental thinking, both by reconsidering authors such as Kant, Schelling, Nietzsche and Heidegger, and by considering how themes and concepts from continental philosophy and social theory - including Merleau-Ponty's concept of flesh, Foucault's notion of discipline, and Bourdieu's social critique of taste - bear on environmental practice and theory. (shrink)

The fact that humans are responsible for climate change is certain. But the meaning of the fact of human responsibility is not disclosed by stating the fact: there is a distinction between the two principles, de facto and de jure, the right to state a fact and the right to assert the meaning of the fact. This distinction must be preserved in order that humans may interpret the nature of our responsibility, as a form of justice. In fact, the nature (...) of human responsibility can never be exhaustively determined. To recognise the fact of human responsibility for climate change may only lead us to acknowledge that climate change coincides with the plundering and exploitation of the earth as a natural resource, together with the industrial pollution which fouls our atmosphere. It is something else again to know precisely what must be done, how to think and write and interpret the science, or even what can be achieved before it is too late to prevent the worst effects of global warming. In this essay I analyse the central claims of proponents of the idea of the Anthropocene, arguing that they are arrogant and perhaps even naïve: in particular, the suggestion that humanity and nature have now fused to become a geological force is shown to be theological in its orientation. The essay also exposes Anthropocenology as a form of pedagogy, meaning that rather than opposing the neoliberalism that it attacks, Anthropocenology joins itself to the biopolitical institutions of education, seizing power in order to govern a totalized human population all the more effectively. (shrink)

[full article, abstract in English; only abstract in Lithuanian] In Normativity of Scientific Laws explicit and implicit normativities were discerned and it was shown, following Joseph Rouse, that scientific laws implicitly harbour what Alchourrón and Bulygin imply to be the core of normativity. Here I develop this claim by discerning six aspects of implicit normativity in scientific laws: general and special conceptual normativity, concerning analytical thinking and special scientific terminologies; theoretical and material epistemic normativity, concerning mathematical and experimental accountability of (...) the world; narrow and broad practical normativity, concerning technologies in both narrower and broader senses. (shrink)

Joseph Rouse has drawn from Heidegger’s early philosophy to develop what he calls a “practical hermeneutics of science.” With this, he has not only become an important player in the recent trend towards practice-based conceptualisations of science, he has also emerged as the predominant expositor of Heidegger’s philosophy of science. Yet, there are serious shortcomings in both Rouse’s theory of science and his interpretation of Heidegger. In the first instance, Rouse’s practical hermeneutics appears confused on the topic of realism. In (...) the second instance, Rouse suppresses Heidegger’s distinction between existence and essence, and hence fails to grasp the latter’s corollary distinction between scientic research and everyday practice. I argue that, by accepting a correction in his interpretation of Heidegger, Rouse would find the means to resolve the debilitating tensions in his stance towards realism. (shrink)

The paper examines the personalization of information technology from the p.c. onwards to the 3-D printing and mobile technologies in order to show that the current process of technological evolution puts the human personality in the centre of its functionality. This new centre opens the discussion about authenticity and in-authenticity of human Dasein, since the common element of these new technologies is that they employ faciality and personalization in a new condition of ready-to-hand and present-at-hand mode. By applying the Heideggerian (...) modes of being on the process of personalization new forms of digital ethics appear. I suggest that the above take place in the navigation memory of the net, in the creativity of the self through the 3-D printer, and in the localization of the “psyche” in the hard drive disk. The paper defends the possibilities of an ethical, authentic and sheltering personalization, where human beings and information technology responsibly engage. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethics & the Environment 10.2 (2005) 75-99 [Access article in PDF] Gynocentric Eco-Logics Trish Glazebrook All of our teachings come from things in nature, they come from the growing cycle, and everything is tied to the earth.1Ludwig Fleck describes in his Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact how the concept of syphilis is "a result of the development and confluence of several lines of collective thought" (Fleck 1979, (...) 23). Diagnosis and treatment of the disease required that its symptomatology undergo transformation from "an undifferentiated and confused mass of information about chronic diseases characterized by skin symptoms" (1979, 1) into the concept of a single disease. Identifying the Spirochaeta pallida bacterium and diagnosing syphilis by means of the Wasserman reaction was only possible when an unclearly related collection of symptoms could be experienced as belonging together in a unified phenomenology.Likewise, I wish to provide a diagnosis and etiology, and suggest a curative possibility for a disease of modernity I will call phallic logic. Symptomatic of this sickness are wide-spread social alienation, global domination and oppression on the basis of gender, race, class and color, and epidemic eco-destruction. A body of critique exists in ecofeminist analyses that experiences these symptoms as a single disease: the phallic logic of modernity. "Logic" in this context does not mean the formal discipline [End Page 75] in which rules for the proper manipulation of abstract statements are laid down. Rather, "logic" in the sense used here is an epistemological term. It means the ways that understanding is structured. Phallic logic is the structure of understanding that permeates patriarchy. This logic takes its paradigm from scientific objectivity, but even voices from within the sciences themselves are arguing that contemporary human being must establish new ways of thinking about nature.I propose that such new eco-logics, that is, ways of thinking about nature, take their guidance from the physical environment. If nature informs knowledge claims, then knowledge itself is construed organically: it is finite and changing rather than fixed and eternal. Such logics can encompass the finitude of physical embodiment as an epistemological principle, and hence I identify them as gynocentric. They are not grounded in the disembodied Cartesian subject that feminists have shown so often and clearly to be typical of androcentric philosophizing. These logics draw instead on the physicality of environmental elements as well as of the thinker, and thus they allow nature's temporality to resonate within knowledge itself. They are not satisfied with a conceptual contrast between nature's on-going coming-to-be and passing-away and the alleged universality of knowledge. Rather, they take nature as a model for truth and acknowledge that nature infuses the things we say to be truth.There is an abundance of arguments for the differences between male and female writing and thinking.2 I speak in accord with these voices, but I frame my project differently. I will begin by presenting evidence of a call for alternative epistemologies from within the sciences, and then use ecofeminist analyses to argue that the scientists in question are moving away from a phallic logic toward gynocentric eco-logics. Next I will make clear three assumptions that underlie my account. The first two are Heideggerian. I accept his argument that the logic of modernity is scientific objectivity, and I use his account of truth and essence to argue that knowledge is situated rather than universal. Hence gynocentric eco-logics entail an essentialism that is historical rather than biological. I give up biology as the fixative for essence, but avoid a decline into what is entirely arbitrary and subjective by fixing essence in terms of cultural and historical location. Hence I am using a Heideggerian notion of situatedness, but applying it specifically to gender such that I can maintain that the category of "woman" is neither universal, nor shattered irreparably into [End Page 76] fragmented individualism. My Heideggerianism is further qualified in that I am not writing in the spirit of Heidegger's life-time project. I will take the force of his insights to be epistemological rather than metaphysical or ontological... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethics & the Environment 8.1 (2003) 22-36 [Access article in PDF] Art or Nature?Aristotle, Restoration Ecology, and Flowforms Trish Glazebrook He to whom nature begins to reveal her open secrets will feel an irresistible yearning for her most worthy interpreter: Art. 1Aristotle believed strongly in a distinction between artifact (technê) and nature (physis). He intended by "technê" more than is generally understood by the contemporary term "art," for he (...) meant anything produced by human intention. For example, for Aristotle medicine was technê in that the doctor produces health. The key point in distinguishing art from nature for him was that things in nature grow and develop on the basis of an internal principle of change, whereas artistic production requires an outside agent. There are some complications with the Aristotelian account: are the spider's web and the bird's nest art or nature? Aristotle can respond to this problem easily enough by arguing that spiders and birds create on the basis of instinct, while reason is requisite for artistic production. Yet some art may not meet this definition: artists may not always have a full conception of the work to be produced prior to its execution. Creativity can be emergent rather than intentional during the productive process, and may arise, for example, from the artist's interaction with the chosen material. [End Page 22]Despite these objections to the Aristotelian distinction, however, his analysis of the differences between art and nature can be usefully applied to recent debates in restoration ecology in order to argue that the human capacity to restore nature does not justify its destruction. Nature cannot be "faked," that is, recreated through art. Furthermore, the Aristotelian analysis has been influential historically by providing a conceptual basis for the technological domination of nature, as if nature were nothing more than matter upon which form can be imposed. Yet there are alternative possibilities in Aristotle's account that ecologically-minded art can bring to fruition. I will use Aristotle's analysis to suggest a potential resolution of the "faking nature" debate, and accordingly to show how contemporary, ecologically-minded art can promote an ideology of production that works with rather than against nature.Robert Elliot argues that restoration ecology does not justify environmental destruction, because faked nature (that is, nature re-created by human artifice) is not as valuable as the original. 2 I will call this claim, which is based on the idea that restoration is analogous to artistic production, "the Elliot view." I will first assess the Elliot view, and give reasons why I sympathize with his conclusions, yet find his arguments unconvincing. Second, I will present Aristotle's distinction between nature and art, with emphasis on his arguments that nature is goal-directed, in order to give content to the claim that nature has intrinsic value. Third, I will look at restoration policies and practices in the oil industry in Alberta, Canada, to establish a praxical notion of restoration, and to support Elliot's claim that nature cannot be faked. I have chosen oilfield restoration as a working example for the sake of the general methodological principle that praxes without reflections are blind, while reflections that transcend the lifeworld are empty; and specifically because Alberta leads the industry in restoration standards and practices. Finally, I will use Flowforms to argue that ecologically-minded art can demonstrate how production of artifacts need not affirm a logic of domination, but rather can open a space for an alternative conception of the human relation to nature. The Elliot View Elliot's view depends on distinguishing nature from art, and attributing a greater value to the natural. On what basis should we accept this value-hierarchy? The reasons Elliot gives are less than convincing. Ultimately his arguments rest on two points: that copies are not as good as [End Page 23] originals; and that even if an ecosystem's value could be fully restored, the value lost in the time between despoilation and restoration is irrecoverable. He simply finds "naturalness" to be more valuable than artifice. But he is not alone in... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethics & the Environment 8.1 (2003) 22-36 [Access article in PDF] Art or Nature?Aristotle, Restoration Ecology, and Flowforms Trish Glazebrook He to whom nature begins to reveal her open secrets will feel an irresistible yearning for her most worthy interpreter: Art. 1Aristotle believed strongly in a distinction between artifact (technê) and nature (physis). He intended by "technê" more than is generally understood by the contemporary term "art," for he (...) meant anything produced by human intention. For example, for Aristotle medicine was technê in that the doctor produces health. The key point in distinguishing art from nature for him was that things in nature grow and develop on the basis of an internal principle of change, whereas artistic production requires an outside agent. There are some complications with the Aristotelian account: are the spider's web and the bird's nest art or nature? Aristotle can respond to this problem easily enough by arguing that spiders and birds create on the basis of instinct, while reason is requisite for artistic production. Yet some art may not meet this definition: artists may not always have a full conception of the work to be produced prior to its execution. Creativity can be emergent rather than intentional during the productive process, and may arise, for example, from the artist's interaction with the chosen material. [End Page 22]Despite these objections to the Aristotelian distinction, however, his analysis of the differences between art and nature can be usefully applied to recent debates in restoration ecology in order to argue that the human capacity to restore nature does not justify its destruction. Nature cannot be "faked," that is, recreated through art. Furthermore, the Aristotelian analysis has been influential historically by providing a conceptual basis for the technological domination of nature, as if nature were nothing more than matter upon which form can be imposed. Yet there are alternative possibilities in Aristotle's account that ecologically-minded art can bring to fruition. I will use Aristotle's analysis to suggest a potential resolution of the "faking nature" debate, and accordingly to show how contemporary, ecologically-minded art can promote an ideology of production that works with rather than against nature.Robert Elliot argues that restoration ecology does not justify environmental destruction, because faked nature (that is, nature re-created by human artifice) is not as valuable as the original. 2 I will call this claim, which is based on the idea that restoration is analogous to artistic production, "the Elliot view." I will first assess the Elliot view, and give reasons why I sympathize with his conclusions, yet find his arguments unconvincing. Second, I will present Aristotle's distinction between nature and art, with emphasis on his arguments that nature is goal-directed, in order to give content to the claim that nature has intrinsic value. Third, I will look at restoration policies and practices in the oil industry in Alberta, Canada, to establish a praxical notion of restoration, and to support Elliot's claim that nature cannot be faked. I have chosen oilfield restoration as a working example for the sake of the general methodological principle that praxes without reflections are blind, while reflections that transcend the lifeworld are empty; and specifically because Alberta leads the industry in restoration standards and practices. Finally, I will use Flowforms to argue that ecologically-minded art can demonstrate how production of artifacts need not affirm a logic of domination, but rather can open a space for an alternative conception of the human relation to nature. The Elliot View Elliot's view depends on distinguishing nature from art, and attributing a greater value to the natural. On what basis should we accept this value-hierarchy? The reasons Elliot gives are less than convincing. Ultimately his arguments rest on two points: that copies are not as good as [End Page 23] originals; and that even if an ecosystem's value could be fully restored, the value lost in the time between despoilation and restoration is irrecoverable. He simply finds "naturalness" to be more valuable than artifice. But he is not alone in... (shrink)