Visualizando el Cambio: Humanidades Ambientales / Envisioning Change: Environmental Humanities

Edited by Alejandro Rivero-Vadillo, University of Alcalá, Spain; Instituto Franklin, Spain and Carmen Flys-Junquera, University of Alcalá, Spain; Instituto Franklin, Spain

The 21st century has been described by many environmental scholars as the one in which humanity will need to face its greatest challenge. The diverse ramifications of the climatic crisis are perhaps the most evident proof of this. This dual-lingual multiauthor volume reflects different perspectives of envisioning an eco-social change towards a more sustainable and just society. Musings on the philosophical implications of utopias, ecofeminism, biopolitics, and biomimicry come together with photography and participatory documentaries. "Envisioning Change: Environmental Humanities" opens with an essay from one of Spain’s foremost essayists on environmental philosophy, Jorge Riechmann. Literary analyses run from classic myths to oral traditions, including references to frequently neglected traditions such as Bhutan or Croatia, in addition to Spain and the United Kingdom. Rather than emulate theoretical and overarching studies, as several of the recent books on environmental humanities, this volume has many original features, including the abundant references to myths and chapters on eco-translation. This volume reflects a wide variety of approaches and particularly highlights the search of younger scholars for new approaches to envision a better world. It would hold appeal for scholars, researchers and teachers interested in the environmental humanities from either a philosophical, literary or artistic perspective. Moreover, environmentalists, activists, artists, and local politicians may also be interested in how the humanities can contribute to the wider environmental cause. El siglo XXI ha sido descrito por muchos académicos medioambientales como el siglo en el que la humanidad tendrá que enfrentarse a su mayor reto, y la prueba más evidente quizás sean las ramificaciones de la crisis climática. Esta colección bilingüe refleja perspectivas diferentes de visualizar un cambio eco-social hacia una sociedad más justa y sostenible. Reflexiones sobre las inferencias filosóficas de las utopías, el ecofeminismo, la biopolítica y la biomímesis se juntan con fotografía y documentales participativos. “Visualizando el cambio: Humanidades ambientales” comienza con un texto escrito por uno los ensayistas sobre filosofía ambiental más importantes de España, Jorge Reichmann. Los análisis literarios van desde mitos clásicos a tradiciones orales, incluyendo referencias a tradiciones frecuentemente olvidadas como las de Bután o Croacia. En lugar de imitar estudios teóricos y globales como han hecho libros recientes que versan sobre humanidades ambientales, esta colección tiene varias características originales, que comprenden abundantes referencias a mitos y capítulos sobre eco-traducción. Esta colección refleja una amplia variedad de enfoques; destaca la búsqueda de nuevas perspectivas para visualizar un mundo mejor por jóvenes académicos, y será de interés para académicos, investigadores y profesores interesados en las humanidades ambientales desde puntos de vista filosóficos, literarios o artísticos. Además, ecologistas, activistas, artistas y políticos locales pueden encontrar información sobre cómo las humanidades pueden contribuir a la causa medioambiental.

Reintroducing Philosophy: Thinking as the Gathering of Civilization

According to contemporary, Islamicate and ancient sources

Anthony F. Shaker

That we are now entering a post-Western world is no longer merely a thesis in international studies. But what does the dissolution of “Western” hegemony signify for humanity’s rich learning traditions and the civilizing quest for wisdom? How can this human inheritance assist us today? "Reintroducing Philosophy" seeks a more realistic framework for discourse on these questions than offered by the Western-centric worldview, which continues to be taught in schools almost by rote. It analyzes themes from several world traditions in logic, knowledge and metaphysics connected with the quest for completeness of thinking and practice. Its examination of the relation of knowing and being is based on sources as varied as Leibniz and Frege, Qūnawī and Ṣadrā, ancient Greek and classical Indian and Chinese thought. Shaker brings into the discussion the paradigm (unmūzaj) that Ṣadrā presented as that of man’s being in the world, encapsulating philosophy’s longstanding view of thinking as the gathering of civilization. "Reintroducing Philosophy" is based on a concentrated reading of all these sources, simply because human civilization had already been global and advanced before the present age.

The Person at the Crossroads: A Philosophical Approach

Edited by James Beauregard, Rivier University et al.

‘The Person at the Crossroads: A Philosophical Approach’ brings together scholars from around the world who share a common interest in the nature and activity of the human person. Personhood is examined from a variety of perspectives, both philosophical and theological, drawing on the rich traditions of both Western and Eastern thought. Readers will find themselves on a journey through the works of past and current scholars including, Confucius, Augustine, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Horace Bushnell, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Michael Polanyi, Rudolf Carnap, Karol Wojtyla, Erazim Kohak, and many other authors who touch upon the personalist tradition and the human person. This volume will be of particular interest to readers interested in the nature of the human person, as well as philosophy and theology undergraduate and graduate students and professors teaching in these areas.

Logic and African Philosophy

Seminal Essays on African Systems of Thought

Edited by Jonathan O. Chimakonam, University of Pretoria, South Africa

“Logic and African Philosophy: Seminal Essays on African Systems of Thought” aims to put African intellectual history in perspective, with focus on the subjects of racism, logic, language, and psychology. The volume seeks to fill in the gaps left by the exclusion of African thinkers that are frequent in the curricula of African schools concerning history, sociology, philosophy, and cultural studies. The book is divided into four parts that are preceded by an introduction to link up the essays and emphasise their sociological implications. Part one is comprised of essays that opened the controversy of whether logic can be found in traditional African cultures as well as other matters like the nature of the mind and behaviour of African peoples. The essays in part two are centred on the following question: are the laws of thought present in African languages and cultures? Part three brings together essays that sparkle the debate on whether there can be such a thing as African logic, which stems from the discussions in part two. Part four is concerned on the theme of system-building in logic; contributions are written by members of the budding African philosophy movement called the “Conversational School of Philosophy” based at the University of Calabar, and the main objective of their papers is to formulate systems of African logic.

Manual of Reformed Stoicism

Piotr Stankiewicz, University of Warsaw, Poland

This book is a manifesto of reformed Stoicism. It proposes a system of life which is bullet-proof, universal, viable and effective in every cosmic setting. It holds in every possible universe, under any government and within any economic system. We can be reformed Stoics no matter what we believe in. Reformed Stoicism is about enjoying and exercising our agency. In other words, it’s about the flow of making autonomous and right decisions, and about celebrating our ability to make them. With no reliance on nature, with the recalibration of metaphysical positions, with skepticism towards grand discourses and universal answers, with an emphasis on the usefulness instead of truthfulness of narratives, with no reference to the vanity argument, with criticism of both conservative and ascetic misinterpretations of Stoicism, with an overall softer and more empathic approach, we can no longer be defined by the generic term “Stoicism”. Our time, in short, calls for a fresh interpretation of Stoicism. It is time for a new generation of Stoics. Thus: reformed Stoicism.