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Robert Bernasconi
Robert L. Bernasconi (born 1950) is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Philosophy at Pennsylvania State University. He is known as a reader of Martin Heidegger and Emmanuel Levinas, and for his work on the concept of race. He has also written on the history of philosophy. Career Bernasconi received his doctorate from Sussex University. He taught at the University of Essex for thirteen years before taking up a position at the University of Memphis. In the fall of 2009 he moved from Memphis to the philosophy department at Pennsylvania State University. Bernasconi comes from an academic family and was born in Newcastle, United Kingdom. His brother John is the Director of Fine arts at the University of Hull. The family are of Italian background. Interests In addition to extensive work on Heidegger and Levinas, Bernasconi has written on Immanuel Kant, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hannah Arendt, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jean-Paul Sartre, Frantz Fanon, Jacques Derrida, and numerous others ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Philosophy
Western philosophy encompasses the philosophical thought and work of the Western world. Historically, the term refers to the philosophical thinking of Western culture, beginning with the ancient Greek philosophy of the pre-Socratics. The word ''philosophy'' itself originated from the Ancient Greek (φιλοσοφία), literally, "the love of wisdom" grc, φιλεῖν , "to love" and σοφία '' sophía'', "wisdom"). History Ancient The scope of ancient Western philosophy included the problems of philosophy as they are understood today; but it also included many other disciplines, such as pure mathematics and natural sciences such as physics, astronomy, and biology (Aristotle, for example, wrote on all of these topics). Pre-Socratics The pre-Socratic philosophers were interested in cosmology; the nature and origin of the universe, while rejecting mythical answers to such questions. They were specifically interested in the (the cause or first principle) of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics have made him one of the most influential figures in modern Western philosophy. In his doctrine of transcendental idealism, Kant argued that space and time are mere "forms of intuition" which structure all experience, and therefore that, while " things-in-themselves" exist and contribute to experience, they are nonetheless distinct from the objects of experience. From this it follows that the objects of experience are mere "appearances", and that the nature of things as they are in themselves is unknowable to us. In an attempt to counter the skepticism he found in the writings of philosopher David Hume, he wrote the '' Critique of Pure Reason'' (1781/1787), one of his most well-known works. In it, he developed his theory of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Wood (philosopher)
David Wood (born 1946) was Centennial Professor of Philosophy, and Joe B. Wyatt Distinguished University Professor, at Vanderbilt University. Wood has taught philosophy in Europe and the United States for over thirty years, and is the author of 16 books. In addition to teaching at Vanderbilt University, he also co-directs (with Beth Conklin) a research programme in ecology and spirituality for the Centre for the Study of Religion and Culture. Background Wood was born in Oxford, England. He was an undergraduate at the University of Manchester, where he was introduced to phenomenology by Wolfe Mays. He went on to do graduate work in philosophy at New College, Oxford (1968–1971), where through the good offices of Alan Montefiore (at Balliol College) Jacques Derrida was a frequent visitor. Under the influence of a group of animal rights activists led by Roslind and Stanley Godlovitch – now known as the Oxford Group; Peter Singer, author of '' Animal Liberation'' (1975) was ass ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simon Critchley
Simon Critchley (born 27 February 1960) is an English philosopher and the Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York, USA. Challenging the ancient tradition that philosophy begins in wonder, Critchley argues that philosophy begins in disappointment. Two particular forms of disappointment inform Critchley's work: religious and political disappointment. While religious disappointment arises from a lack of faith and generates the problem of what is the meaning of life in the face of nihilism, political disappointment comes from the violent world we live in and raises the question of justice in a violently unjust world. In addition, to these two regions of research, Critchley's recent works have engaged in more experimental forms of writing on Shakespeare, David Bowie, suicide, Greek tragedy and association football. Life and education Simon Critchley was born on 27 February 1960, in Letchworth Garden City, England, to a working-class f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polygenism
Polygenism is a theory of human origins which posits the view that the human races are of different origins (''polygenesis''). This view is opposite to the idea of monogenism, which posits a single origin of humanity. Modern scientific views no longer favor the polygenic model, with the monogenic "Out of Africa" hypothesis and its variants being the most widely accepted models for human origins. Historically, polygenism has been used to advance racial inequality. Origins Many oral traditions feature polygenesis in their creation stories. For example, Bambuti mythology and other creation stories from the pygmies of Congo state that the supreme God of the pygmies, Khonvoum, created three different races of humans separately out of three kinds of clay: one black, one white, and one red. In some cultures, polygenism in the creation narrative served an etiological function. These narratives provided an explanation as to why other people groups exist who are not affiliated with t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miscegenation
Miscegenation ( ) is the interbreeding of people who are considered to be members of different races. The word, now usually considered pejorative, is derived from a combination of the Latin terms ''miscere'' ("to mix") and ''genus'' ("race") from the Hellenic γένος. The word first appeared in '' Miscegenation: The Theory of the Blending of the Races, Applied to the American White Man and Negro'', a pretended anti-abolitionist pamphlet David Goodman Croly and others published anonymously in advance of the 1864 U.S. presidential election. The term came to be associated with laws that banned interracial marriage and sex, which were known as anti-miscegenation laws. Opposition to miscegenation, framed as preserving so-called racial purity, is a typical theme of racial supremacist movements. Although the notion that racial mixing is undesirable has arisen at different points in history, it gained particular prominence among white communities in United States during the coloni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hybridity
Hybridity, in its most basic sense, refers to mixture. The term originates from biology and was subsequently employed in linguistics and in racial theory in the nineteenth century. Young, Robert. ''Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race'', 1995, Putnam, . Its contemporary uses are scattered across numerous academic disciplines and is salient in popular culture.pp.106-136. Hutnyk, John. ‘Adorno at Womad: South Asian crossovers and the limits of hybridity-talk’, in ''Debating Cultural Hybridity'', ed. by Tariq Modood and Pnina Werbner, 1997, Zed Books, . Hybridity is used in discourses about race, postcolonialism, identity, anti-racism and multiculturalism, and globalization, developed from its roots as a biological term. In biology As racial mixing Hybridity is a cross between two separate races, plants or cultures. A hybrid is something that is mixed, and hybridity is simply mixture. Hybridity is not a new cultural or historical phenomenon. It has been a feat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
African Philosophy
African philosophy is the philosophical discourse produced in Africa or by indigenous Africans. The term Africana philosophy covers the philosophy made by African descendants, including African Americans. African philosophers are found in the various academic fields of present philosophy, such as metaphysics, epistemology, moral philosophy, and political philosophy. One particular subject that several modern African philosophers have written about is that on the subject of freedom and what it means to be free or to experience wholeness. Philosophy in Africa has a rich and varied history, some of which has been lost over time. Some of the world's oldest philosophical texts have been produced in Ancient Egypt (Kemet), written in Hieratic and on papyrus, from ca. 2200 to 1000 BCE, one of the earliest known African philosophers was Ptahhotep, an ancient Egyptian philosopher. In general, the ancient Greeks acknowledged the Egyptian forebearers, and in the fifth century BCE, the philoso ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perform some form of work while also having their location or residence dictated by the enslaver. Many historical cases of enslavement occurred as a result of breaking the law, becoming indebted, or suffering a military defeat; other forms of slavery were instituted along demographic lines such as race. Slaves may be kept in bondage for life or for a fixed period of time, after which they would be granted freedom. Although slavery is usually involuntary and involves coercion, there are also cases where people voluntarily enter into slavery to pay a debt or earn money due to poverty. In the course of human history, slavery was a typical feature of civilization, and was legal in most societies, but it is now outlawed in most countries of the w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against other people because they are of a different race or ethnicity. Modern variants of racism are often based in social perceptions of biological differences between peoples. These views can take the form of social actions, practices or beliefs, or political systems in which different races are ranked as inherently superior or inferior to each other, based on presumed shared inheritable traits, abilities, or qualities. There have been attempts to legitimize racist beliefs through scientific means, such as scientific racism, which have been overwhelmingly shown to be unfounded. In terms of political systems (e.g. apartheid) that support the expression of prejudice or aversion in discriminatory practices or laws, racist ideology ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frantz Fanon
Frantz Omar Fanon (, ; ; 20 July 1925 – 6 December 1961), also known as Ibrahim Frantz Fanon, was a French West Indian psychiatrist, and political philosopher from the French colony of Martinique (today a French department). His works have become influential in the fields of post-colonial studies, critical theory, and Marxism. As well as being an intellectual, Fanon was a political radical, Pan-Africanist, and Marxist humanist concerned with the psychopathology of colonization and the human, social, and cultural consequences of decolonization. In the course of his work as a physician and psychiatrist, Fanon supported Algeria's War of independence from France and was a member of the Algerian National Liberation Front. Fanon has been described as "the most influential anticolonial thinker of his time". For more than five decades, the life and works of Fanon have inspired national-liberation movements and other radical political organizations in Palestine, Sri Lanka, South Af ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology), a French playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic, as well as a leading figure in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism. His work has influenced sociology, critical theory, post-colonial theory, and literary studies, and continues to do so. He was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature despite attempting to refuse it, saying that he always declined official honors and that "a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution." Sartre held an open relationship with prominent feminist and fellow existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. Together, Sartre and de Beauvoir challenged the cultural and social assumptions and expectations of their upbringings, which they considered bourgeois, in both lifestyles and thought. The conflict between oppressive, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
