•  372
    For a New Naturalism
    Telos Press. 2017.
    Contemporary naturalism is changing and scientific reductionism is under challenge from those who advocate a more comprehensive outlook. This special issue of Telos, based on the first Telos Australia Symposium held at Swinburne University in Melbourne in February 2014, introduces some of the key questions in the current debates. It also poses the question of whether more satisfactory political and social thought can be produced if scientific reductionism is replaced by a richer and more hermene…Read more
  •  385
    The Politics of Recognition versus the Politics of Hatred
    Democracy and Nature 8 (2): 261-280. 2002.
    Hatred of America expressed in the September 11th attack is more than matched by the hatred by Americans for Islamists expressed in the war on Afghanistan, the War against Terror and the threatened wars against the “Axis of Evil”. It is argued here that there is a pattern of self-reinforcing hatred operating in the world set in motion by the actions of the United States, particularly by George Bush Snr. and embraced and used by George Bush Jr. to reinforce and further develop this pattern. To op…Read more
  •  514
    Towards an Inclusive Democracy, it is argued, offers a powerful new interpretation of the history and destructive dynamics of the market and provides an inspiring new vision of the future in place of both neo-liberalism and existing forms of socialism. It is shown how this work synthesizes and develops Karl Polanyi’s characterization of the relationship between society and the market and Cornelius Castoriadis’ philosophy of autonomy. A central component of Fotopoulos’ argument is that social dem…Read more
  •  628
    Soviet Environmentalism: The Path Not Taken
    Capitalism, Nature, Socialism: The Journal of Socialist Ecology 4 (4): 69-88. 1993.
    The collapse of the Soviet Union, all hope that Eastern European communism might somehow be transformed into a more attractive, less environmentally destructive social order than the liberal democratic societies of the West has been destroyed. The description of the modern predicament by Alvin W. Gouldner has become even more poignant: "The political uniqueness of our own era then is this; we have lived and still live through a desperate political and social malaise, while at the same time we ha…Read more
  •  601
    Aleksandr Bogdanov: Proletkult and Conservation
    Capitalism, Nature, Socialism: A Journal of Socialist Ecology 5 (2): 65-94. 1994.
    The most important figure among Russia's radical Marxists was A.A. Bogdanov (the pseudonym of Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Malinovskii). Not only was he the prime exponent of a proletarian cultural revolution; it was Bogdanov's ideas which provided justification for concern for the environment. And his ideas are not only important to environmentalists because they were associated with this conservation movement; more significantly they are of continuing relevance because they confront the root cause…Read more
  •  649
    Postmodernism as the Decadence of the Social Democratic State
    Democracy and Nature 7 (1): 77-99. 2001.
    In this paper it is argued that the corresponding rise of postmodernism and the triumph of neo-liberalism are not only not accidental, the triumph of neo-liberalism has been facilitated by postmodernism. Postmodernism has been primarily directed not against mainstream modernism, the modernism of Hobbes, Smith, Darwin and social Darwinism, but against the radical modernist quest for justice and emancipation with its roots in German thought. The Social Democratic State, the principles of which wer…Read more
  •  1575
    Systems Theory and Complexity
    Democracy and Nature 6 (3): 327-339. 2000.
    In this paper the central ideas and history of the theory of complex systems are described. It is shown how this theory lends itself to different interpretations and, correspondingly, to different political conclusions.
  •  2329
    Aleksandr Bogdanov and Systems Theory
    Democracy and Nature 6 (3): 341-359. 2000.
    The significance and potential of systems theory and complexity theory are best appreciated through an understanding of their origins. Arguably, their originator was the Russian philosopher and revolutionary, Aleksandr Bogdanov. Bogdanov anticipated later developments of systems theory and complexity theory in his efforts to lay the foundations for a new, post-capitalist culture and science. This science would overcome the division between the natural and the human sciences and enable workers to…Read more
  •  494
    The Challenge of a New Naturalism
    with Wayne Hudson
    In Arran Gare & Wayne Hudson (eds.), For a New Naturalism, Telos Press. 2017.
    Contemporary naturalism is changing and scientific reductionism is under challenge from those who advocate a more comprehensive outlook. This special issue of Telos, based on the first Telos Australia Symposium held at Swinburne University in Melbourne in February 2014, introduces some of the key questions in the current debates. It also poses the question of whether more satisfactory political and social thought can be produced if scientific reductionism is replaced by a richer and more hermene…Read more
  •  502
    The Case for Speculative Naturalism
    In Arran Gare & Wayne Hudson (eds.), For a New Naturalism, Telos Press. pp. 9-32. 2017.
    C.D. Broad pointed out that philosophy in the Twentieth Century radically reduced its scope by contracting the methods it deployed. While traditionally philosophers had used analysis, synopsis and synthesis to reveal and overcome the inconsistencies of culture, critical philosophers reduced the role accorded to synopsis and eliminated any role for synthesis. This, it is argued, was a disastrous wrong turn that has led philosophers to embrace scientism, equated with naturalism, which has marginal…Read more
  •  689
    The Western and Eastern thought traditions for exploring the nature of mind and life
    with Plamen L. Simeonov, Koichiro Matsuno, Abir U. Igamberdiev, and Denis Noble
    Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology 131 1-11. 2017.
    This is the editorial to the special edition of Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology on the role engagement with Eastern traditions of thought could play in the advancement of science generally and biology and the science of mind in particular.
  •  433
    Epilogue: Western science, reductionism and eastern perspectives
    Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology 131 497-499. 2017.
    Modern science originated in Western Europe, but its astonishing successes have forced every other civilization in the world to acknowledge and embrace its achievements. It is at the core of modernity and of the globalization of civilization. Consequently, efforts to show that non-Western traditions of thought should be taken seriously within the paradigm of science itself will inevitably provoke skepticism. However, science itself is riven not only by major problems and rival research programs,…Read more
  •  1525
    Chreods, homeorhesis and biofields: Finding the right path for science
    Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology 131 61-91. 2017.
    C.H. Waddington’s concepts of ‘chreods’ (canalized paths of development) and ‘homeorhesis’ (the tendency to return to a path), each associated with ‘morphogenetic fields’, were conceived by him as a contribution to complexity theory. Subsequent developments in complexity theory have largely ignored Waddington’s work and efforts to advance it. Waddington explained the development of the concept of chreod as the influence on his work of Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy, notably, the con…Read more
  •  201
    The Arts and the Radical Enlightenment
    The Structurist 47 20-27. 2007/2008.
    The arts have been almost completely marginalized - at a time when, arguably, they are more important than ever. Whether we understand by “the arts” painting, sculpture and architecture, or more broadly, the whole aesthetic realm and the arts faculties of universities concerned with this realm, over the last half century these fields have lost their cognitive status. This does not mean that there are not people involved in the arts, but they do not have the standing participants in these fields …Read more
  •  249
    Book Review of Christopher Alexander, 'The Nature of Order: An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe, Book Two, The Process of Creating Life'
  •  1241
    This paper argues that while Heidegger showed the importance of architecture in altering people's modes of being to avoid global ecological destruction, the work of Christopher Alexander offered a far more practical orientation to deal with this problem.
  •  522
    Is it possible to create an ecologically sustainable world order: the implications of hierarchy theory for human ecology
    International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology 7 (4): 277-290. 2000.
    Human ecology, it is argued, even when embracing recent developments in the natural sciences and granting a place to culture, tends to justify excessively pessimistic conclusions about the prospects for creating a sustainable world order. This is illustrated through a study of the work and assumptions of Richard Newbold Adams and Stephen Bunker. It is argued that embracing hierarchy theory as this has been proposed and elaborated by Herbert Simon, Howard Pattee, T.F.H. Allen and others enables h…Read more
  •  1158
    Editorial. Special issue on Integral Biomathics: The Necessary Conjunction of the Western and Eastern Thought Traditions for Exploring the Nature of Mind and Life.
    with Plamen L. Simeonov, Koichiro Matsuno, and Abir U. Igamberdiev
    Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology 131 (December, Focussed Issue): 1-11. 2017.
    The idea about this special issue came from a paper published as an updated and upridged version of an older memorial lecture given by Brian D. Josephson and Michael Conrad at the Gujarat Vidyapith University in Ahmedabad, India on March 2, 1984. The title of this paper was “Uniting Eastern Philosophy and Western Science” (1992). We thought that this topic deserves to be revisited after 25 years to demonstrate to the scientific community which new insights and achievements were attained in this …Read more
  •  9152
    The spectre of global environmental destruction is before us, the legacy of the expansion and domination of the world by European civilization. Not even the threat to the continued existence of humanity is enough to move the members of this civilization to alter its trajectory. And Marxism, which had held out the possibility of creating a new social order, has been swept from the historical stage by the failure of Eastern European communism. Nihilism Inc. is an attempt to overcome this crisis. E…Read more
  •  617
    Human Ecology and Public Policy: Overcoming the Hegemony of Economics
    Democracy and Nature 8 (1): 131-141. 2002.
    The thinking of those with the power to formulate and implement public policy is now almost totally dominated by the so-called science of economics. While efforts have been made to supplement or modify economics to make it less brutal or less environmentally blind, here it is suggested that economics is so fundamentally flawed and that it so completely dominates the culture of late modern capitalism (or postmodernity) that a new master human science is required to displace it and provide an alte…Read more
  •  624
    This paper argues that human ecology, based on process philosophy and challenging scientific materialism, is required to effectively confront the global ecological crisis now facing us.
  •  1438
    Beyond Desartes and Newton: Recovering life and humanity
    with Stuart A. Kauffman
    Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology 119 (3): 219-244. 2015.
    Attempts to ‘naturalize’ phenomenology challenge both traditional phenomenology and traditional approaches to cognitive science. They challenge Edmund Husserl’s rejection of naturalism and his attempt to establish phenomenology as a foundational transcendental discipline, and they challenge efforts to explain cognition through mainstream science. While appearing to be a retreat from the bold claims made for phenomenology, it is really its triumph. Naturalized phenomenology is spearheading a succ…Read more
  •  159
    Review of Maria Kronfeldner, Darwinian Creativity and Memetics, Acumen, 2011 (review)
    Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 1-3. 2012.
    Review of Maria Kronfeldner, Darwinian Creativity and Memetics, Acumen, 2011
  •  215
    Book Review: The Great Adventure: Toward a Fully Human Theory of Evolution (review)
    Cosmos and History 3 (1): 230-235. 2007.
    Book Review of David Loye (ed). The Great Adventure: Toward a Fully Human Theory of Evolution. N.Y.: SUNY Press, 2004.
  •  728
    By revealing the centrality of stories to action, to social life and to inquiry together with the implicit assumptions in polyphonic stories about the nature of humans, of life and of physical reality, this paper examines the potential of stories to transform civilization. Focussing on the failure of environmentalists so far in the face of the global ecological crisis, it is shown how ethics and political philosophy could be reconceived and radical ecology reformulated and reinvigorated by appre…Read more
  •  227
    Endorsing Bill Readings’ argument that there is an intimate relationship between the dissolution of the nation-State, the undermining of the Humboldtian ideal of the university and economic globalization, this paper defends both the nation-State and the Humboldtian university as core institutions of democracy. However, such an argument only has force, it is suggested, if we can revive an appreciation of the real meaning of democracy. Endorsing Cornelius Castoriadis’ argument that democracy has b…Read more
  •  540
    Whitehead and Pythagoras
    Concrescence 7. 2006.
    While the appeal of scientific materialism has been weakened by developments in theoretical physics, chemistry and biology, Pythagoreanism still attracts the allegiance of leading scientists and mathematicians. It is this doctrine that process philosophers must confront if they are to successfully defend their metaphysics. Peirce, Bergson and Whitehead were acutely aware of the challenge of Pythagoreanism, and attempted to circumvent it. The problem addressed by each of these thinkers was how to…Read more
  •  398
    The Semiotics of Global Warming: Combating Semiotic Corrruption
    Theory and Science 9 (2): 1-36. 2007.
    The central focus of this paper is the disjunction between the findings of climate science in revealing the threat of global warming and the failure to act appropriately to these warnings. The development of climate science can be illuminated through the perspective provided by Peircian semiotics, but efforts to account for its success as a science and its failure to convince people to act accordingly indicate the need to supplement Peirce’s ideas. The more significant gaps, it is argued, call f…Read more
  •  1313
    The transformation of universities from public institutions to transnational business enterprises has met with less resistance in Australia than elsewhere. Yet this transformation undermines the founding principles of Australian democracy. This democracy emerged in opposition to the classical form of free market liberalism that the neo-liberals have revived. The logical unfolding of social liberalism in Australia underpinned the development of both the system of wage fixing and the idea of publi…Read more
  •  627
    While some process philosophers have denigrated the emergent theory of mind, what they have denigrated has been ‘materialist’ theories of emergence. My contention is that one of the most important reasons for embracing process philosophy is that it is required to make intelligible the emergence of consciousness. There is evidence that this was a central concern of Whitehead. However, Whitehead acknowledged that his metaphysics was deficient in this regard. In this paper I will argue that to full…Read more