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  •  1
    In his chapter, Gerard Kuperus explores kinship and vulnerability partially formulated within the context of the Turtle Island myth. In the myth and the cultures based on it, we are always seen in relationships to the non-human world, not as masters, but rather as dependent agents. Kinship with the natural world is central. In the modern Western mindset, on the other hand, we have attempted to make ourselves into beings that are not vulnerable. We see the non-human world as consisting of passive…Read more
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    Continental Philosophy Beyond "the" Continent / Brian Treanor -- Prometheus' Gift of Fire and Technics: Contemplating the Meaning of Fire, Affect, and Californian Pyrophytes in the Pyrocene / Marjolein Oele -- The West as Slaughterbench: Thinking without Revolutions in the American West / Christopher Lauer -- The End of the West: The Time of Apocalypse in the Westerns of Cormac McCarthy / Amanda Parris -- The Trees of the West: Our Elders, Our Teachers / Andrew Jussaume -- Thinking Wolves / Thom…Read more
  •  38
    A Contextualized Self: Re-placing Ourselves Through Dōgen and Spinoza
    Comparative and Continental Philosophy 11 (3): 222-234. 2019.
    ABSTRACTFor Dōgen, the Buddhist doctrine of “no self” ultimately presents the self as contextualized. The self is for him not an independent entity, but is intricately related to its environment, determined through the many beings around it. In a quite different philosophical setting, Spinoza developed similar ideas. While Dōgen challenged the specifics of a tradition that explicitly argues against the idea of an absolute self, Spinoza faced a more radical challenge: questioning an absolute, unc…Read more
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    Listening to the Salmon
    Environmental Philosophy 16 (2): 379-395. 2019.
    When salmon disappear, their loss is felt among many species of animals, trees, and plants. This essay suggests listening to the salmon when it comes to learning how to become better members of the earth community, so that not our presence, but our absence would be a loss to the ecosystems that we dwell in. This argument is made through a discussion of Latour’s Facing Gaia and the Native American philosophy of the Tlingit. Albeit in different terms, both suggest ways to become better participant…Read more
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    This volume contains essays that offer both historical and contemporary views of nature, as seen through a hermeneutic, deconstructive, and phenomenological lens. It reaches back to Ancient Greek conceptions of physis in Homer and Empedocles, encompasses 13th century Zen master Dōgen, and extends to include 21st Century Continental Thought. By providing ontologies of nature from the perspective of the history of philosophy and of contemporary philosophy alike, the book shows that such perspectiv…Read more
  •  26
    The Self as a Becoming Work of Art in Early Romantic Thought
    Idealistic Studies 46 (1): 65-77. 2016.
    For the Jena Romantics the idea of a self is always in a process, never fully completed. It develops itself as an acting I that interacts with the world, an ongoing interchange between what I am and what I am not. In order to grasp how the self develops and is educated, this paper compares this idea of the self to Schlegel’s account of irony. Both irony and the I exist as an ongoing process. In this comparison the self is found to be a work of art, which is never what it is since its identity al…Read more
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    The Development of the Role of the Spectator in Kant’s Thinking
    Idealistic Studies 40 (1-2): 65-82. 2010.
    In this paper I discuss the development of Kant’s Critical project in the pre-critical writings. I am particularly focusing upon the problems that Kant encounters in developing the idea of a transcendental subject. This helps us to understand the radical nature of Kant’s project in which he does not merely turn around the relationship between subject and object, but also has to redefine the nature of the subject. The development of the subject starts with Kant’s idea of an observer who actively …Read more
  •  12
    Attunement, Deprivation, and Drive
    In Christian Lotz & Corinne Painter (eds.), Phenomenology and the Non-Human Animal, Springer. pp. 13--27. 2007.
    In his lecture course, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, Heidegger discusses three different forms of poverty and deprivation. First of all, the poverty in world of the non-human animal, second, the poverty in the being of contemporary Dasein, and, third, the deprivation of world in the fundamental attunement of profound boredom. This essay discusses these three forms of poverty or deprivation, with the goal to offer a preliminary analysis of Heidegger’s distinction between the human and …Read more
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    While our world is characterized by mobility, global interactions, and increasing knowledge, we are facing serious challenges regarding the knowledge of the places around us. We understand and navigate our surroundings by relying on advanced technologies. Yet, a truly knowledgeable relationship to the places where we live and visit is lacking. This book proposes that we are utterly lost and that the loss of a sense of place has contributed to different crises, such as the environmental crisis, t…Read more