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August 20
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Carl
is currently reading:
Mortality and Morality: A Search for Good After Auschwitz (SPEP)
by Hans Jonas
bookshelves:
currently-reading,
philosophy
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Carl
gave
to:
The Phenomenon of Life: Toward a Philosophical Biology (SPEP)
by Hans Jonas
bookshelves:
philosophy
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my rating:
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Carl said:
"Jonas attempts to create an "existential biology" which adopts the existential analysis of subjectivity created by Heidegger, but reads subjectivity as a fundamental feature of all living things.
I find this somewhat difficult to accept ...more
Jonas attempts to create an "existential biology" which adopts the existential analysis of subjectivity created by Heidegger, but reads subjectivity as a fundamental feature of all living things.
I find this somewhat difficult to accept fully -- I can accept gorillas, fish, and spiders as subjects in some attenuated sense, but can't do so for mosses and fungi, as Jonas requires. Jonas wants to be both a Darwinian and an Aristotelian, and this puts irresolvable tensions on his characterization of what life does.
On the other hand, Jonas is exactly right to argue that "life" does need a distinct ontological category, and that the neglect of "life" in the Cartesian dichotomy of "matter" and "mind" is an important element in the historical trajectory that leads to modern nihilism.
Jonas also does a nice job of arguing how the phenomenology of life provides an ontological grounding for ethics without theologizing. (Though Jonas is a deeply religious thinker, his theology does not enter into the ontological grounding of ethics.)
So while I can't fully endorse everything Jonas does, it's an important step in the right direction! ...less
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Carl
marked as to-read:
Saving Fish from Drowning: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle)
by Amy Tan
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Carl
marked as to-read:
The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy (Paperback)
by Stanley Cavell
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Carl
gave
to:
Experience and Nature (Paperback)
by John Dewey
bookshelves:
philosophy
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read in January, 2006
Carl said:
"Not many books deserve the hype heaped upon them. This one does. Oliver Wendell Holmes, the Supreme Court justice, said of this book that it's just what one would read if God Himself had tried to say how the world really is, but was incapable of ex...more
Not many books deserve the hype heaped upon them. This one does. Oliver Wendell Holmes, the Supreme Court justice, said of this book that it's just what one would read if God Himself had tried to say how the world really is, but was incapable of expressing Himself clearly. I agree; the metaphysical vision of the continuity between "nature" and "mind" is correct, but Dewey is an awful writer. ...less
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Carl
gave
to:
A Common Faith (The Terry Lectures Series)
by John Dewey
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Carl
gave
to:
Mind and World (Paperback)
by John McDowell
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Carl
gave
to:
Buddha's Little Finger (Paperback)
by Victor Pelevin
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Carl
gave
to:
Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century (Hardcover)
by Tony Judt
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Carl
gave
to:
Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole (Hardcover)
by Benjamin R. Barber
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