Anthropocentrism and Its Discontents

Author: Gary Steiner
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre
ISBN: 0822970988
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 345

Book Description
Anthropocentrism and Its Discontents is the first-ever comprehensive examination of views of animals in the history of Western philosophy, from Homeric Greece to the twentieth century. In recent decades, increased interest in this area has been accompanied by scholars' willingness to conceive of animal experience in terms of human mental capacities: consciousness, self-awareness, intention, deliberation, and in some instances, at least limited moral agency. This conception has been facilitated by a shift from behavioral to cognitive ethology (the science of animal behavior), and by attempts to affirm the essential similarities between the psychophysical makeup of human beings and animals. Gary Steiner sketches the terms of the current debates about animals and relates these to their historical antecedents, focusing on both the dominant anthropocentric voices and those recurring voices that instead assert a fundamental kinship relation between human beings and animals. He concludes with a discussion of the problem of balancing the need to recognize a human indebtedness to animals and the natural world with the need to preserve a sense of the uniqueness and dignity of the human individual.

Anthropocentrism and Its Discontents

Author: Gary Steiner
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781306867252
Category : Animal welfare
Languages : en
Pages : 345

Book Description
"Anthropocentrism and Its Discontents" is the first-ever comprehensive examination of views of animals in the history of Western philosophy, from Homeric Greece to the twentieth century. In recent decades, increased interest in this area has been accompanied by scholars willingness to conceive of animal experience in terms of human mental capacities: consciousness, self-awareness, intention, deliberation, and in some instances, at least limited moral agency. This conception has been facilitated by a shift from behavioral to cognitive ethology (the science of animal behavior), and by attempts to affirm the essential similarities between the psychophysical makeup of human beings and animals. Gary Steiner sketches the terms of the current debates about animals and relates these to their historical antecedents, focusing on both the dominant anthropocentric voices and those recurring voices that instead assert a fundamental kinship relation between human beings and animals. He concludes with a discussion of the problem of balancing the need to recognize a human indebtedness to animals and the natural world with the need to preserve a sense of the uniqueness and dignity of the human individual. "

Anthropocentrism

Author: Rob Boddice
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004187944
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 371

Book Description
This collection explores assumptions behind the label ‘anthropocentrism’, critically enquiring into the meaning of ‘human’. It addresses epistemological and ontological problems in charges of anthropocentrism, questioning the inherent anthropocentrism of all human perspectives, while seeking ‘other’ views that trump anthropocentrism.

Non-Human Nature in World Politics

Author: Joana Castro Pereira
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030494969
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 348

Book Description
This book explores the interconnections between world politics and non-human nature to overcome the anthropocentric boundaries that characterize the field of international relations. By gathering contributions from various perspectives, ranging from post-humanism and ecological modernization, to new materialism and post-colonialism, it conceptualizes the embeddedness of world politics in non-human nature, and proposes a reorientation of political practice to better address the challenges posed by climate change and the deterioration of the Earth’s ecosystems. The book is divided into two main parts, the first of which addresses new ways of theoretically conceiving the relationship between non-human nature and world politics. In turn, the second presents empirical investigations into specific case studies, including studies on state actors and international organizations and bodies. Given its scope and the new perspectives it shares, this edited volume represents a uniquely valuable contribution to the field.

Animals and the Limits of Postmodernism

Author: Gary Steiner
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231527292
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 307

Book Description
In Animals and the Limits of Postmodernism, Gary Steiner illuminates postmodernism's inability to produce viable ethical and political principles. Ethics requires notions of self, agency, and value that are not available to postmodernists. Thus, much of what is published under the rubric of postmodernist theory lacks a proper basis for a systematic engagement with ethics. Steiner demonstrates this through a provocative critique of postmodernist approaches to the moral status of animals, set against the background of a broader indictment of postmodernism's failure to establish clear principles for action. He revisits the ideas of Derrida, Foucault, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, together with recent work by their American interpreters, and shows that the basic terms of postmodern thought are incompatible with definitive claims about the moral status of animals—as well as humans. Steiner also identifies the failures of liberal humanist thought in regards to this same moral dilemma, and he encourages a rethinking of humanist ideas in a way that avoids the anthropocentric limitations of traditional humanist thought. Drawing on the achievements of the Stoics and Kant, he builds on his earlier ideas of cosmic holism and non-anthropocentric cosmopolitanism to arrive at a more concrete foundation for animal rights.

Anthropocentrism

Author: Rob Boddice
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004214941
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 370

Eat This Book

Author: Dominique Lestel
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231541155
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 151

Book Description
If we want to improve the treatment of animals, Dominique Lestel argues, we must acknowledge our evolutionary impulse to eat them and we must expand our worldview to see how others consume meat ethically and sustainably. The position of vegans and vegetarians is unrealistic and exclusionary. Eat This Book calls at once for a renewed and vigorous defense of animal rights and a more open approach to meat eating that turns us into responsible carnivores. Lestel skillfully synthesizes Western philosophical views on the moral status of animals and holistic cosmologies that recognize human-animal reciprocity. He shows that the carnivore's position is more coherently ethical than vegetarianism, which isolates humans from the world by treating cruelty, violence, and conflicting interests as phenomena outside of life. Describing how meat eaters assume completely—which is to say, metabolically—their animal status, Lestel opens our eyes to the vital relation between carnivores and animals and carnivores' genuine appreciation of animals' life-sustaining flesh. He vehemently condemns factory farming and the terrible footprint of industrial meat eating. His goal is to recreate a kinship between humans and animals that reminds us of what it means to be tied to the world.

Ecological Literature and the Critique of Anthropocentrism

Author: Bryan L. Moore
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319607383
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 278

Book Description
This book is an analysis of literary texts that question, critique, or subvert anthropocentrism, the notion that the universe and everything in it exists for humans. Bryan Moore examines ancient Greek and Roman texts; medieval to twentieth-century European texts; eighteenth-century French philosophy; early to contemporary American texts and poetry; and science fiction to demonstrate a historical basis for the questioning of anthropocentrism and contemplation of responsible environmental stewardship in the twenty-first century and beyond. Ecological Literature and the Critique of Anthropocentrism is essential reading for ecocritics and ecofeminists. It will also be useful for researchers interested in the relationship between science and literature, environmental philosophy, and literature in general.

Freud and the Limits of Bourgeois Individualism

Author: León Rozitchner
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004471588
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 522

Book Description
Offering an in-depth interpretation of Sigmund Freud’s so-called “collective” or “social” works, León Rozitchner shows how the Left should consider the ways in which capitalism inscribes its power in the subject as the site for the verification of history.

Gender and the Law of the Sea

Author: Irini Papanicolopulu
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004375171
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 388

Book Description
Gender and the Law of the Sea successfully establishes the relevance of gender at sea and posits that feminist perspectives can help develop a more inclusive law for the oceans.