•  10
    Elite Business Networks and the Field of Power: A Matter of Class?
    with Mairi Maclean and Gerhard Kling
    Theory, Culture and Society 34 (5-6): 127-151. 2017.
    We explore the meaning and implications of Bourdieu’s construct of the field of power and integrate it into a wider conception of the formation and functioning of elites at the highest level in society. Corporate leaders active within the field of power hold prominent roles in numerous organizations, constituting an ‘elite of elites’, whose networks integrate powerful participants from different fields. As ‘bridging actors’, they form coalitions to determine institutional settlements and societa…Read more
  •  17
    Special Issue Editors’ Introduction
    Philosophy in the Contemporary World 23 (2): 1-3. 2016.
    The Society for Philosophy in the Contemporary World maintains a commitment to pluralism in philosophical discourse by encouraging original, unconventional research with regard to contemporary concerns. Among our members, few have championed this commitment more steadfastly than the late Joe Frank Jones III who passed away in January 2015 while planning our annual meeting. Joe had spent a number of years advocating for and developing a graduate-level Bioethics Certificate at Radford University, …Read more
  •  9
    In Memoriam
    Philosophy in the Contemporary World 27 (2): 100-105. 2021.
  •  14
    The Ghosts Within Us, the Others Without
    Philosophy in the Contemporary World 6 (2): 15-23. 1999.
    In this essay I use personal narrative concerning my father and myself to compare and contrast the Heideggerian/sociological idea of "being-alongside-others" in the public world with the more classical philosophical ideal of inter subjective contact between two selves. I try to show that "being-alongside-others " in the public world does not dissolve the issue of intersubjectivity. To do this, I use narrative vignettes and develop some ideas about the role that intimacy plays in developing the s…Read more
  •  44
    Review (review)
    Synthese 77 (3): 415-425. 1988.
  •  17
    On the Experience of Historical Objects
    International Journal of Applied Philosophy 2 (2): 73-79. 1984.
  • Book reviews (review)
    Husserl Studies 6 (3): 235-242. 1989.
  •  50
    Shrinking selves in synthetic sites: On personhood in a Walt disney world (review)
    with Carol Zibell
    Ethics and Information Technology 2 (1): 19-25. 2000.
    In this essay we show how certain tendencies of theself are enhanced and hindered by technologicallyorganized places. We coordinate a cognitive andbehavioral technology for the control of personalidentity with the technologically totalizedenvironments that we call synthetic sites. Weproceed by describing Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi''sstrategy for intensifying experience and organizingthe self. Walt Disney World is then considered as theexample, par excellence, of a synthetic sitethat promotes ordere…Read more
  •  36
    Reflective and Reflexive Selfhood
    Philosophy in the Contemporary World 13 (1): 13-19. 2006.
    This essay briefly explicates, criticizes and supplements the work of two sociologists of “postmodern” society, Ulrich Beck and AnthonyGiddens, as their work develops and relates to the ideas of reflexivity and reflectivity with special regards to the self. Each of these writers bases some significant portion of his work on the idea of the inescapable “reflexivity” of contemporary life for both persons and institutions. For each author, the phenomenon of reflexivity has both positive and negativ…Read more
  •  9
    Insatiable: Why Everything is not Enough
    Philosophy in the Contemporary World 26 (1): 69-89. 2020.
    In this essay, I argue that the deepest roots of Homo sapiens’ propensity towards excessive consumption lie in the emptiness of human awareness, itself possibly rooted in brain plasticity. I attempt to demonstrate how this insight emerged and appeared repeatedly throughout the history of philosophy and religious thought and how industrialized capitalism and consumer culture led to the current domination and envelopment of our lives by the “commodity canopy.” In the final section of the paper, I …Read more
  •  53
    A Modest Constructionism
    Philosophy in the Contemporary World 5 (2-3): 27-31. 1998.
    In this response I argue (a) that Jones’ minimalist realism is, also, a minimalist constructionism. And (b) that the silent sphere ofevidence that Jones’ uses to ground his realism, may not be able to supply even a minimalist, strictly negative ground for epistemic endeavors.
  •  126
    Liberal indoctrination and the problem of community
    Synthese 111 (1): 15-30. 1997.
    Responding to claims to the contrary, this essay shows how liberal education, the education of critical exposure, indoctrinates students into a style of belief and belief formation. It argues that a common liberal view about what constitutes freedom from indoctrination is precisely the form of indoctrination feared by many conservative communitarians. While I support the style and procedures of liberal education, I argue that we cannot excise all indoctrinating components from it by semantic, lo…Read more
  •  7
    Humankind and the Rape of the World
    Philosophy in the Contemporary World 23 (2): 93-102. 2016.
    This paper sketches the history of unethical behavior of Homo sapiens to other forms of life on planet Earth. I ask, and sketch responses to, the question: How and why is it that we, the so-called “ethical animal,” have been the worst of all animals in relation to other life-forms on our planet? In response to the answers to this question, I claim that we know, and have known for a very long time, what it means to be morally good. But in light of the natural bases of our behavior, I wonder if it…Read more
  •  14
    A Note on the Existential Foundations of Phenomenological Reduction
    Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 17 (2): 193-197. 1986.
  •  17
    Making Hollow Men
    Educational Theory 59 (2): 189-201. 2009.
    In this essay Charles Harvey offers a worried reflection on the range, extent, depth, affects, and effects of the perpetual assessment of the person in industrial nations in the contemporary world. Harvey begins his analysis by appealing to the work of Martin Heidegger, Michel Foucault, and Jean Baudrillard to provide an interpretive framework of our situation. He then focuses and concretizes these ideas through examples from his own life and, by extension, the readers. Finally, in light of Pier…Read more
  •  7
    The Ghosts Within Us, the Others Without
    Philosophy in the Contemporary World 6 (2): 15-23. 1999.
    In this essay I use personal narrative concerning my father and myself to compare and contrast the Heideggerian/sociological idea of "being-alongside-others" in the public world with the more classical philosophical ideal of inter subjective contact between two selves. I try to show that "being-alongside-others " in the public world does not dissolve the issue of intersubjectivity. To do this, I use narrative vignettes and develop some ideas about the role that intimacy plays in developing the s…Read more
  •  22
    Harvey (philosophy, U. of Central Arkansas) argues that the phenomenology of German philosopher Edmund Husserl is a response to the dualisms that emerged from 17th c. philosophy. He sheds light on the relation classical phenomenology has to broad concerns in the history of philosophy. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.
  •  5
    If Bob and Joe switched minds, but kept the same bodies, who would be Bob and who would be Joe? If time has no beginnning, how could it have reached now? Conundrums provides a basic, quick introduction to some key problems of philosophy by asking concise questions that evoke classical philosophical problems in a striking manner. It is written in a lively, engaging style and promotes critical thinking skills. This pocketbook is intended for introductory philosophy courses and may be used to gener…Read more
  •  23
    Ideas for a Hermeneutic Phenomenology of the Natural Sciences (review)
    Review of Metaphysics 48 (4): 904-906. 1995.
    Kockelmans' contribution to the philosophy of science stems from ideas in this second chapter, developments and applications of ideas found in Husserl's phenomenology, Heidegger's existential analytic, and Gadamer's hermeneutics. Kockelmans makes the now familiar claim that, as ever placed within the world, human thinking starts from the world, presupposing it, its things, structures, values, and meanings; there is no radically detached cogito. To be done, natural science and its ontology, presu…Read more
  •  33
    Paradise Well Lost
    Philosophy in the Contemporary World 1 (1): 9-14. 1994.
    “Paradise Well Lost” offers a description and criticism of communitarian claims that in contemporary liberal society the self is in sad shape, that liberal society is out of harmony with the needs of the self, and that such a society makes the good life nearly impossible to achieve. It is argued that communitarian thought is driven by a false and deluded nostalgia for a self-world unity that never was andnever can be, that human consciousness prohibits the neatly unified communialization of self…Read more
  •  41
    PostScript
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 45 (Supplement): 121-126. 2007.
    Three problems are raised for Nicholas Georgalis’s recent work: (1) a problem with regard to the supposed noninferential knowledge of minimal content, (2) a problem with the “necessary condition” Georgalis stipulates for the legitimate application of a first-person methodology to a science of the mind, and (3) a problem with regard to denying phenomenal content to intentional acts.
  •  27
    In this essay I note some surprisingly deep parallels between the accounts of technology offered by Martin Heidegger and by Kevin Kelly. While Heidegger's insight is panoramic and almost prophetic, and grounded in his reading of the history of philosophy, Kelly's account is grounded in empirical and historical data, driven by a naturalistic and scientific understanding of our world. The similarities between these two authors are surprising in light of their different methodological frameworks an…Read more
  •  71
    Epochē, entertainment and ethics: On the hyperreality of everyday life (review)
    Ethics and Information Technology 6 (4): 261-269. 2004.
    In this essay, I argue that popular entertainment can be understood in terms of Husserl’s concepts of epochē, reduction and constitution, and, conversely, that epochē, reduction and constitution can be explicated in terms of popular entertainment. To this end I use Husserl’s concepts to explicate and reflect upon the psychological and ethical effects of an exemplary instance of entertainment, the renowned Star Trek episode entitled “The Measure of a Man.” The importance of such an exercise is tw…Read more
  •  43
    Authority, Autonomy, Authenticity
    Philosophy in the Contemporary World 4 (1-2): 10-15. 1997.
    This essay attempts to understand the search for authenticity in terms of the breakdown of authority in the modern world. The sense of autonomy, I argue, emerges from the need to choose the authorities one will accept. The ever-increasing difficulty of choosing from among authorities is internalized and is experienced as a difficulty of choosing, or “finding” oneself. The shattered authorities on the outside become a fragmented self on the inside. The search for the authentic self, then, is the …Read more
  •  8
    Paradise Well Lost
    Philosophy in the Contemporary World 1 (1): 9-14. 1994.
    “Paradise Well Lost” offers a description and criticism of communitarian claims that in contemporary liberal society the self is in sad shape, that liberal society is out of harmony with the needs of the self, and that such a society makes the good life nearly impossible to achieve. It is argued that communitarian thought is driven by a false and deluded nostalgia for a self-world unity that never was andnever can be, that human consciousness prohibits the neatly unified communialization of self…Read more
  •  20
    The Ghosts Within Us, the Others Without
    Philosophy in the Contemporary World 6 (2): 15-23. 1999.
    In this essay I use personal narrative concerning my father and myself to compare and contrast the Heideggerian/sociological idea of "being-alongside-others" in the public world with the more classical philosophical ideal of inter subjective contact between two selves. I try to show that "being-alongside-others " in the public world does not dissolve the issue of intersubjectivity. To do this, I use narrative vignettes and develop some ideas about the role that intimacy plays in developing the s…Read more
  •  36
    Editor’s Introduction
    Philosophy in the Contemporary World 15 (2): 1-5. 2008.