Paul Fairfield’s two new edited collections —Relational Hermeneutics: Essays in Comparative Philosophy and Hermeneutics and Phenomenology: Figures and Themes—are now published by Bloomsbury. Both books are co-edited with Saulius Geniusas.
Investigating connections between philosophical hermeneutics and neighbouring traditions of thought, Relational Hermeneutics considers the question of how post-Heideggerian hermeneutics, as represented by Gadamer, Ricoeur and recent scholars following in their wake, relate to these traditions, both in general terms and bearing upon specific questions. The traditions covered in this volume—existentialism, pragmatism, poststructuralism, Eastern philosophy, and hermeneutics itself—are all characterized by significant internal diversity, adding to the difficulty in reaching an interpretation that is at once comparative and critical. Hermeneutics and Phenomenology shows that the relationship between these two central theoretical and philosophical approaches is more complex and interesting than our standard story might suggest. It is not always clear how hermeneutics—that is, post-Heideggerian hermeneutics as articulated by Hans-Georg Gadamer, Paul Ricoeur, and a large number of thinkers working under their influence—regards the phenomenological tradition, be it in its Husserlian or various post-Husserlian formulations. This volume inquires into this issue both in general, conceptual terms and through specific analyses into questions of ontology and metaphysics, science, language, theology, and imagination.
Paul Fairfield also recently published a new book with Routledge: Deep disagreements exist regarding what thinking and critical thinking are and to what extent they are teachable. Thinking is learned in some measure by all, but not everything that is learnable is also teachable in an institutional setting. In questioning the relationship between teachability and learnability, Fairfield investigates the implications of thinking as inquiry, education as the cultivation of agency, and self-education. By challenging some of the standard conceptions of thinking, the author explores the limits of teachability and advances critiques of standardized tests, digital learning technologies, and managerialism in education.
David Bakhurst and Paul Fairfied also recently co-edited a book on Michael Oakeshott's ideas on education. , published by Bloomsbury, shows how the idea of conversation illuminates both the character and the ends of education, yielding insight into the scope and limits of the philosophy of education and the character of philosophical inquiry more generally.
Sergio Sismondo's new book Ghost-Managed Medicine explores a spectral side of medical knowledge, based in pharmaceutical industry tactics and practices. The book is published both in paperback and as an open-access text, which means that you can download it for free at the Press's website.
Hidden from the public view, the many invisible hands of the pharmaceutical industry and its agents channel streams of drug information and knowledge from contract research organizations (that extract data from experimental bodies) to publication planners (who produce ghostwritten medical journal articles) to key opinion leaders (who are sent out to educate physicians about drugs) to patient advocacy organizations (who ventriloquize views on diseases, treatments and regulations), and onward. The goal of this ‘assemblage marketing’ is to establish conditions that make specific diagnoses, prescriptions and purchases as obvious and frequent as possible. While staying in the shadows, companies create powerful markets in which increasing numbers of people become sick and the drugs largely sell themselves.
The claims that agents of the pharmaceutical industry make are drawn from streams of knowledge that have been fed, channeled and maintained by the companies at every possible opportunity. Especially because those companies have concentrated influence and narrow interests, consumers and others should be concerned about how epistemic power is distributed – or ‘political economies of knowledge’ – and not just about truth and falsity of medical knowledge.
Recent PhD student Kyle Johannsen has just published a revised version of his dissertation as a book, A Conceptual Investigation of Justice. Kyle calls for renewed attention to the manner in which the word ‘justice’ is and should be used. Focusing on the late work of G.A. Cohen, Kyle argues that debates over both the content and scope of egalitarian justice are, to a large extent, really just conceptual. Whereas some philosophers have been using the term ‘justice’ to refer to one among a plurality of values, others have been using it to refer to institutional rightness. Though the latter use of ‘justice’ is presently more dominant, he argues that much is to be gained from thinking of justice as one value among many. Doing so sheds light on the nature of both democracy and legitimacy, and, paradoxically, makes better sense of the idea that justice is ‘the first virtue of institutions’. Kyle did his dissertation working with Christine Sypnowich. He is currently Visiting Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department at Trent University.
Christine Sypnowich's book Equality Renewed: Justice, Flourishing, and the Egalitarian Ideal, has come out in paperback. Christine proposes a theory of equality centred on human flourishing or wellbeing. She argues that egalitarianism should be understood as seeking to make people more equal in the constituents of a good life. Inequality is a social ill because of the damage it does to human flourishing: unequal distribution of wealth can have the effect that some people are poorly housed, badly nourished, ill-educated, unhappy or uncultured, among other things. When we seek to make people more equal our concern is not just resources or property, but how people fare under one distribution or another. Ultimately, the best answer to the question, ‘equality of what?,’ is some conception of flourishing, since whatever policies or principles we adopt, it is flourishing that we hope will be more equal as a result of our endeavours.
, co-edited Helga Kuhse, Udo Schüklenk and Peter Singer, has recently made it to a third edition.
Professor Christine Overall has edited a new book entitled Pets and People: The Ethics of Our Relationships with Companion Animals. Published by Oxford University Press (New York), Pets and People is a collection of articles by philosophers from the United States, Canada, Australia, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. The book focuses on ethical issues connected to a category of individuals who play an extremely important role in human lives: companion animals (“pets”), with a special emphasis on dogs and cats. Companion animals are both vulnerable to and dependent upon us. What responsibilities do we owe to them, especially since we have the power and authority to make literal life-and-death decisions about them? What kinds of relationships should we have with our companion animals? And what might we learn from cats and dogs about the nature and limits of our own morality?
The contributors write from a variety of philosophical perspectives, including utilitarianism, care ethics, feminist ethics, phenomenology, and the genealogy of ideas. The eighteen chapters are divided into two sections, to provide a general background to ethical debate about companion animals, followed by a focus on a number of crucial aspects of human relationships to companion animals. The first section discusses the nature of our relationships to companion animals, the foundations of our moral responsibilities to companion animals, what our relationships with companion animals teach us, and whether animals themselves can act ethically. The second part explores some specific ethical issues related to crucial aspects of companion animals' lives: breeding, reproduction, sterilization, cloning, adoption, feeding, training, working, sexual interactions, longevity, dying, and euthanasia.
Pets and People is dedicated to the memory of the late Jean Harvey, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, whose work was the inspiration for the book.
This year Carlos Prado also edited a volume entitled, America's Post-Truth Phenomenon, with several members of the Department among the contributors. Deception in politics is nothing new, but the quantity of unsubstantiated statements in America today is unprecedented. False notions, fake news, "alternative facts," and opinions are being pitched from sources including the White House, Congress, and the American population via Twitter, Facebook, and online news sites as well as print, television, and radio. Such a widespread spectacle instantly captures the attention of people nationwide, but disagreement has the nation almost bordering on civil war over the definition of "the truth" and what this book calls "post-truth."
Prado also has edited a new book entitled Social Media and Your Brain: Web-Based Communication Is Changing How We Think and Express Ourselves. While society has widely condemned the effects on preteens and teens' natural social maturation of digitally enabled communication, such as texting and messaging, and of social media apps, such as Facebook, Instagram, and SnapChat, these forms of communication are adversely affecting everyone, including adults. This book examines how social media and modern communication methods are isolating users socially, jeopardizing their intellectual habits, and, as a result, decreasing their chances of achieving social and professional success.
Emeritus Professor Michael Allen Fox has published a new book in the Oxford 'Very Short Introductions' series: Home: A Very Short Introduction. “Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.” “Home is where the heart is.” These well-known expressions indicate that home is somewhere desirable, but that also exists in the mind’s eye as much as in a particular physical location. Across cultures and centuries people of varied means have made homes for themselves and those they care about. Humans have clearly evolved to be homebuilders, homemakers, and home-nesters. Dwellings recognizable as homes have been found everywhere archaeologists and anthropologists have looked, representing every era of history and prehistory. Why is home so important to us? Because for better or worse, by presence or absence, it is a crucial point of reference—in memory, feeling, and imagination—for inventing the story of ourselves, our life-narrative, for understanding our place in time. But it is also a vital link through which we connect with others past and present, and with the world and the universe at large.