Latest additions
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. The Encounter of Man and Nature: The Spiritual Crisis of Modern Man
1968, Kazi Publications, Inc
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Added by: Kas BernaysAbstract:
This work from one of the world's leading Islamic thinkers is a spiritual tour de force which explores the relationship between the human being and nature as found in many religious traditions, particularly its Sufi dimension. The author stresses the importance of a greater awareness of the origins of both the human being and nature as a means of righting the imbalance that exists in our deepest selves and in our environment.Comment (from this Blueprint): A landmark text in modern Islamic environmental philosophy — as a contrast to the focus on more historic sources in this topic.
Kuokkanen, Rauna. Towards an “Indigenous Paradigm” From A Sami Perspective
2000, The Canadian Journal of Native Studies XX, 2: 411-436
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Added by: Kas BernaysAbstract:
The author discusses the need, significance and objectives of an "Indigenous paradigm" which is a way of both decolonizing Indigenous minds by "re-centring" Indigenous values and cultural practices and placing Indigenous peoples and their issues into dominant, mainstream discourses which until now have relegated Indigenous peoples to marginal positions. The author argues that the main objectives of such a paradigm include the criticism of Westem dualistic metaphysics and Eurocentrism as well as the return to the Indigenous peoples' holistic philosophies in research.Comment (from this Blueprint): A broad consideration of treating Indigenous philosophy, with an introductory focus on Sámi thought.
Kuokkanen, Rauna. The Logic of the Gift: Reclaiming Indigenous People’s Philosophies
2006, in Thorsten Botz-Bornstein and Jürgen Hengelbrock (eds.), Re-ethnicizing the Minds? Cultural Revival in Contemporary Thought. Brill
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Added by: Kas BernaysAbstract:
This chapter considers the notion of philosophy from the perspective of indigenous peoples. It starts by critically examining the concept of philosophy and expands it with the help of feminist and indigenous scholarship which have pointed out the exclusions and biases in Western philosophical conventions. The main argument of the chapter is that the notion of the gift is one of the structuring principles of many indigenous peoples’ philosophies. The chapter suggests that the understanding of the world which foregrounds human relationship with the natural environment, common to many indigenous peoples, is manifested by the gift, whether give-back ceremonies and rituals or individual gifts given to the land as a recognition of its abundance and reinforcement of these relationships.Comment (from this Blueprint): Introduces the significance of gifting as an ecological idea in the Sámi tradition.
Booth, Annie. We are the Land: Native American Views of Nature
2003, in H. Selin (ed.), Nature Across Cultures. Science Across Cultures: The History of Non-Western Science, vol 4. Springer, Dordrecht
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Added by: Kas BernaysAbstract:
This is how one Native American presents her interpretation of the indigenous understanding of nature. As we will see in this article, many Native Americans present similar understandings. Their reciprocal relationships with nature permeated every aspect of life from spirituality to making a living and led to a different way of seeing the world, what they might call a more “environmental” way of seeing the world. But is this a true picture? Increasingly there has been debate over the nature of the Native American’s relationship to the land, both past and present. This article will examine this debate and the way in which Native Americans view nature.Comment (from this Blueprint): An introduction to the views of nature which proliferate across different Native American philosophies, with a consideration of contemporary discourses about whether environmentalist readings are an accurate or appropriate treatment of Native American traditions of thought.
Arola, Adam. Native American Philosophy
2011, in William Edelglass and Jay L. Garfield (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of World Philosophy. Oxford University Press
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Added by: Kas BernaysAbstract:
This article introduces the central thinkers of contemporary American Indian philosophy by discussing concerns including the nature of experience, meaning, truth, the status of the individual and community, and finally issues concerning sovereignty. The impossibility of carving up the intellectual traditions of contemporary Native scholars in North America into neat and tidy disciplines must be kept in mind. The first hallmark of American Indian philosophy is the commitment to the belief that all things are related—and this belief is not simply an ontological claim, but rather an intellectual and ethical maxim.Comment (from this Blueprint): A broader introduction to Native American philosophy in general, with an emphasis on ontological interconnection as a central theme.
Girardot, Norman, Miller, James, Xiaogan, Liu (eds.). Daoism and Ecology: Ways within a Cosmic Landscape
2001, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions
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Added by: Kas BernaysAbstract:
Until now, no single work has been devoted to both a scholarly understanding of the complexities of the Daoist tradition and a critical exploration of its contribution to recent environmental concerns. The authors in this volume consider the intersection of Daoism and ecology, looking at the theoretical and historical implications associated with a Daoist approach to the environment. They also analyze perspectives found in Daoist religious texts and within the larger Chinese cultural context in order to delineate key issues found in the classical texts. Through these analyses, they assess the applicability of modern-day Daoist thought and practice in China and the West, with respect to the contemporary ecological situation.Comment (from this Blueprint): An collection of essays which allows the reader to look in depth at any particular facets of Daoist ecology that might interest them.
Bacharach, Sondra. Bearing Witness and Creative Activism
2023, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 81(2): 153-163
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Added by: Ten-Herng Lai & Chong-Ming LimAbstract:
In this article, I explore the relationship between witness-bearing arts as a form of creative activism designed to respond to social injustices. In the first section, I present some common features of bearing witness, as conceptualized within media studies and journalism. Then I explain how artworks placed in the streets can bear witness in a similar way. I argue that witness-bearing art transmits knowledge about certain unjust and harmful events, which then places a moral burden or responsibility on the viewer. To defend this view, I offer some examples of activist art that bears witness to certain events. I suggest that witness-bearing art is placed in the streets in order to make certain truths publicly available, by offering evidence of them embedded in the artwork. The final section considers why the bearing witness is especially effective for activist art. Witness-bearing art plays a crucial knowledge-transmitting function, one which enables art to engage in creative activism. I conclude by considering how witness-bearing art offers a powerful and persuasive voice for the oppressed.
Comment (from this Blueprint): This paper can be used for discussions on the potential of art to challenge received narratives.
Kukla, Quill R. Public Artifacts and the Epistemology of Collective Material Testimony
2022, Philosophical Issues, 32(1): 233-252
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Added by: Ten-Herng Lai & Chong-Ming LimAbstract:
Many artifacts that are part of the public landscape—including monuments, memorials, murals, and many viewing towers, arches, gardens, public sculptures, and buildings—are designed to communicate knowledge. It is common to describe such public artifacts as speech, and also to describe them as transmitting knowledge of one sort or another. But the claim that these artifacts can be knowledge-transmitting speech is not typically developed as the complex claim in philosophy of language and social epistemology that it is. I will argue that such public artifacts can be testimony. This raises several philosophically important questions: How can public artifacts be speech, and more specifically, how can they testify? Whose testimony are they? To whom and about what are they testifying? And what is the epistemological status of this testimony—when should it be trusted? Surely if public artifacts can testify, then they can also mislead; it would be strange for them to be a form of testimony that is always trustworthy. Taking seriously their status as testimony means taking seriously as well the ways in which they can communicate false or unentitled claims. I hope that the idea that public artifacts not only communicate but testify is prima facie plausible; it certainly seems like monuments, memorials, and public artworks, for instance, tell us things, and that they can tell the truth or lie to us.
Comment (from this Blueprint): This paper can be used for discussions of how public artefacts can be collective testimony, and how such testimony can be true or false.
Sypnowich, Christine. Monuments and Monsters: Education, Cultural Heritage and Sites of Conscience
2021, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 55(3): 469–483
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Added by: Ten-Herng Lai & Chong-Ming LimAbstract:
Cultural heritage, manifest in public monuments, plays an important role in education, providing tangible artefacts that chart the history of a society, its achievements, tragedies and horrors, contributing to human understanding and well-being. The educational impact is lifelong—everyone from schoolchildren to senior citizens visit and take in heritage sites. How heritage is to be approached, however, is a complex question, with conflicting narratives vying for prominence. Kingston, Ontario, where my university is situated, is the hometown of Canada's first prime minister, John A. Macdonald, whose ambition to unite the country sea-to-sea brought Canada into being. Today debate rages about how to understand Macdonald's legacy of colonialism, his actions against the Indigenous peoples, whose lands and children were taken from them, and against the families of Chinese workers, who built Canada's railway and were then impeded from making their homes in this country. In a climate of increasing awareness of racial oppression, exemplified particularly by the protests of Black Lives Matter, Kingston is in the grip of debate and demonstration, centering on calls for the removal of a prominent statue of Macdonald from a downtown park. This paper explores the problem of historic monuments to suggest that a focus on education can enable an understanding of heritage that seeks to provide the necessary conditions in which historic wrongs can be understood.Comment (from this Blueprint): This is one of the few papers that discuss how a focus on education can help us to address the problems posed by objectionable commemorations.
Yun, SunInn. ‘Please Don’t Destroy Until it’s Completely Destroyed’: Acts of Education Towards Democracy
2021, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 55(3): 506–515
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Added by: Ten-Herng Lai & Chong-Ming LimAbstract:
The Black Lives Matter campaign has led many people around the world to reassess monuments that are installed in public spaces to commemorate historical figures. These reassessments raise questions about what it means to attack the statues of the past, what the rights and wrongs of such actions are, what this teaches us and how all this is passed on to the next generation. In line with this, I focus on a statue of the former dictator of Korea, Chun Doo-hwan, installed in 2019. The purpose of the statue was, however, somewhat different from that of many other statues currently at issue. It was erected for the purpose of humiliation rather than respect. By examining the case of the statue of Chun Doo-hwan in Korea, this paper discusses the nature of democracy in relation to these attacks on statues. In particular, it attempts to interpret the installation of the statue as a form of art for an emancipated community, where democracy is understood as involving a haunting of the collective memory. It concludes that democracy is something never to be grasped fully, something that slips away from its intentions and that is always to be tested and reconsidered. Finally, the paper addresses the educational significance of the statue in question in terms of how history is to be taught and how, in our interactions with the statues around us, the past is to be remembered.Comment (from this Blueprint): This paper explores the educational significance of commemorations in terms of how history is to be taught and how our past is to be remembered.