Sigridur Thorgeirsdottir | University of Iceland (original) (raw)

Books by Sigridur Thorgeirsdottir

Samanburður á hugmyndum Simine de Beauvoir og Judith Butler um kyn, kyngervi, kynferði út frá hug... more Samanburður á hugmyndum Simine de Beauvoir og Judith Butler um kyn, kyngervi, kynferði út frá hugmyndum þeirra um líkamann.

In recent philosophical and socialscientific research on issues of debt (Maurizio Lazzarato, Davi... more In recent philosophical and socialscientific research
on issues of debt (Maurizio Lazzarato, David Graeber) there are references to Nietzsche’s philosophy of the creditor/debtor relationship from the II. Treatise of the Genealogy of Morals. Nietzsche’s philosophy of this relationship offers a philosophical anthropology of debt that is useful for an understanding of the contemporary crisis of the financial economy as a debt-economy. His idea of God as ultimate creditor is still useful to shed light on the debt-economy as a kind of secular religion. In this paper, I discuss how Nietzsche’s theory of the debtor-creditor relation can be interpreted as a descriptive and a normative model for understanding some of the non-sustainable aspects of the contemporary debt-economy. His model is superior to a contractarian model that offers the predominant regulative principle for debtor-creditor-relations. Nietzsche’s idea of the embodied and relational Subjekt is more realistic than the contractarian, i.e. onesidedly individualistic, disembodied and deterrialized Subjekt. His ethics of generosity as a model for a sustainable debt-economy is interpreted in light of Luce Irigaray’s advancing of Nietzsche’s notion of the embodied, terrialized and relational Subjekt. From this perspective Sloterdijk’s interpretation of a Nietzschean ethics of generosity is criticized.

Helmut Heit & Sigridur Thorgeirsdottir (eds.). 2016. Nietzsche als Kritiker und Denker der Transf... more Helmut Heit & Sigridur Thorgeirsdottir (eds.). 2016. Nietzsche als Kritiker und Denker der Transformation. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter.

53 women philosophers (one for each week of the year) introduced in short texts.

This is a collection of Icelandic translations of essays by Hannah Arendt (1906—1975), one of the... more This is a collection of Icelandic translations of essays by Hannah Arendt (1906—1975), one of the major political thinkers of
the 20th century (University of Iceland Press, 2011). The selection of texts provides an introduction to main themes and
topics of Arendt’s political philosophy such as totalitarianism, evil, truth and lies in politics, human rights, and criticism of
philosophies that uphold love of wisdom at the cost of love of the world. Sigríður Þorgeirsdóttir edits this collection and
writes an introduction about the life and works of Arendt. She discusses Arendt’s analysis of the crisis and possibilities of
politics with reference to contemporary culture, in which politics is undermined by the power of financial elites and consumer
society, but in which citizens also act up and form all kinds of movements in hopes of restoring dignity in politics.

Af ást til heimsins
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) er í hópi merkustu stjórnmálaheimspekinga 20. aldar. Hún fæddist í Þýskalandi en flúði til Bandaríkjanna 1941. Eftir hamfarir seinni heimstyrjaldar varð hún fyrst til að gera ítarlega rannsókn á hugmyndafræði alræðis í nasisma og stalínisma.

Meginviðfangsefni Hönnuh Arendt er að greina ástæðurnar fyrir hruni ríkjandi hugmyndakerfa og kreppu í stjórnmálum. Hún spyr m.a. hvers vegna heimspekin veitir ekki meira viðnám gegn alræðisstjórnarfari en raun ber vitni og leitar svara í sögu hennar. Í leit sinni kemst hú m.a. að því að allt frá fornöld hafi margir helstu heimspekingar Vesturlanda einblínt á ást á visku og fræðilega þekkingu og verið fráhverfir veraldlegri pólitík. Að dómi Arendt er ekki aðeins þörf á visku heldur ekki síður á ást til heimsins, sem komi fram í margbreytilegri pólitískri þátttöku.

Greinarnar eftir Arendt sem hér birtast gefa góða innsýn í helstu viðfangsefni hennar og fjalla um samband heimspeki og stjórnmála, alræði, illsku mannsins og mannréttindi.

Sigríður Þorgiersdóttir ritar inngang um ævi og verk Arendt og tengir stjórnmálaheimspeki hennar við umræðuna um kreppu í stjórnmálum samtímans og mögulegar leiðir út úr henni

Review "For feminist scholars across the disciplines." -- Debra Bergoffen, George Mason Universi... more Review
"For feminist scholars across the disciplines." -- Debra Bergoffen, George Mason University

"I know of no other philosophical work that relates birth and death with sustained, in-depth treatment and connects them to the work of major philosophers." -- Claudia Card, University of Wisconsin--Madison

Product Description
Issues surrounding birth and death have been fundamental for Western philosophy as well as for individual existence. The contributors to this volume unravel the gendered aspects of the classical philosophical discourses on death, bringing in discussions about birth, creativity, and the entire chain of human activity. By linking their work to major thinkers such as Heidegger, Nietzsche, Beauvoir, and Arendt, and to major philosophical currents such as ancient philosophy, existentialism, phenomenology, and social and political philosophy, they challenge prevailing feminist articulations of birth and death. These philosophical reflections add an important sexual dimension to current thinking on identity, temporality, and community.

A philosophical inquiry into politics, embodiment and religion takes us straight to some of conte... more A philosophical inquiry into politics, embodiment and religion takes us straight to some of contemporary culture's most notorious issues: suicide bombing, the veiled and the exposed body, and present-day biopolitics. Interpretations of the body have always been contested, both in the history of philosophy as well as in the history of religions. On the one hand, the body has been perceived as a prison, binding the soul to transience, darkness, and confusion. Yet on the other hand, it has itself been controlled and disciplined by reason and will, law and culture. The ten contributors to 'The Body Unbound' suggest that inquiries into the nature of human embodiment must take into account both context and history in order to scrutinize them and to uncover resources for unbinding a body which has been doubly bound.

Papers by Sigridur Thorgeirsdottir

Hugur 33, 2022

How to Think Critically and Ignite Understanding: The Embodied and Experiential Turn in the Train... more How to Think Critically and Ignite Understanding: The Embodied and
Experiential Turn in the Training of Critical Thinking
The philosophy and teaching of critical thinking have played a central role in
Icelandic academic philosophy since the establishment of the Department of
Philosophy at the University of Iceland in 1972. Páll Skúlason’s article (1987) which
explores the possibility of teaching critical thinking, marks a significant starting
point. To provide clarity and elucidate the primary features of this approach to
critical thinking, we distinguish three traditions of critical thinking.
Firstly, there is the tradition of critical thinking as a rational mode of thought
and logical argumentation. Secondly, we find the tradition of social critical
thinking, often associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Thirdly,
we introduce a more recent approach of embodied critical thinking, based in
phenomenological, pragmatist, hermeneutical, feminist thinking and the turn to
embodiment in the cognitive sciences. In an international research and training
project to which we belong our aim extends beyond merely answering whether
critical thinking can be taught, as Skúlason did. We endeavor to address how
critical thinking can be more effectively cultivated using methods grounded in
embodied and experiential thinking.
We discuss the theoretical foundations of this approach, drawing from
phenomenological and pragmatic philosophies, as well as the methodologies that
have been developed based on these foundations.

Hugur, 2022

How to Think Critically and Ignite Understanding: The Embodied and Experiential Turn in the Train... more How to Think Critically and Ignite Understanding: The Embodied and Experiential Turn in the Training of Critical Thinking
The philosophy and teaching of critical thinking have played a central role in Icelandic academic philosophy since the establishment of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Iceland in 1972. Páll Skúlason’s article (1987) which explores the possibility of teaching critical thinking, marks a significant starting point. To provide clarity and elucidate the primary features of this approach to critical thinking, we distinguish three traditions of critical thinking.
Firstly, there is the tradition of critical thinking as a rational mode of thought and logical argumentation. Secondly, we find the tradition of social critical thinking, often associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Thirdly, we introduce a more recent approach of embodied critical thinking, based in phenomenological, pragmatist, hermeneutical, feminist thinking and the turn to embodiment in the cognitive sciences. In an international research and training project to which we belong our aim extends beyond merely answering whether critical thinking can be taught, as Skúlason did. We endeavor to address how critical thinking can be more effectively cultivated using methods grounded in embodied and experiential thinking.
We discuss the theoretical foundations of this approach, drawing from phenomenological and pragmatic philosophies, as well as the methodologies that have been developed based on these foundations.

Nietzsche- Studien 51 (2022), 271–295, 2022

Luce Irigaray's writings on Nietz sche's philosophy belong to the groundbreaking interpretations ... more Luce Irigaray's writings on Nietz sche's philosophy belong to the groundbreaking interpretations of his work and they also confirm the continued relevance of his philosophy. Unlike most male-centric philosophers, Nietz sche not only saw that sexual difference was becoming one of the major philosophical issues of our age. He was also keenly aware of how it permeated our philosophical tradition with its dualistic models, which is one reason for Irigaray's interest in it, as has been widely discussed in feminist/queer philosophical research into her Nietz sche interpretation. Another common denominator of Nietz sche and Irigaray are their philosophies of the body. Interpreters of Irigaray have pointed out how her conception of embodied, sexuate being calls for a new way of philosophical thinking (Grosz), and Stegmaier interprets the liberation from prejudices we encounter in Nietz sche's works as a "liberation of philosophy." How can the liberation of philosophy be understood in the way we practice philosophical thinking? In the following interpretation of Irigaray's book The Marine Lover of Friedrich Nietz sche (1980), I show how it offers a theory and a practice of embodied philosophical thinking, which I will discuss in light of new phenomenological methodologies of embodied thinking (Gendlin, Petitmengin). Irigaray's interpretation of Nietz sche's philosophy in Marine Lover is both critical and constructive as apparent in her interpretation of Dionysus and Ariadne. On the one hand, this couple represents for her the patriarchal tradition of philosophy that she claims Nietz sche is still stuck in, and on the other hand, it also represents a liberation from resentment and misogyny in relations of the sexes. The notions of listening to oneself and to the other, being touched and tearing, enable such a liberation, both on the level of relations of the sexes and on the level of philosophical dialogues and thinking that Dionysus and Ariadne also represent. The water/ocean in the title of Marine Lover indicates how this is a philosophical text that displays an explicit processing and articulation of feelings, emotions, and affects in philosophical thinking.

Information Philosophie, 2022

Embodied Critical Thinking ist ein internationales Forschungsprojekt (www.ect.hi.is) und eine dam... more Embodied Critical Thinking ist ein internationales Forschungsprojekt (www.ect.hi.is) und eine damit zusammenhängende europäische Ausbildungsinitiative, Training Embodied Critical Thinking (TECT, www.trainingect. com), an der fünf Universitäten beteiligt sind. An diesem Erasmus-Programm wirken die Universitäten Island, Groningen, Ljubljana mit, das Technion in Haifa, die Ernst-Abbe-Universität in Jena und das Mikro-phänomenologische Labor in Paris. Für das Training haben sich im ersten Jahr (2021) 100 Kanditat*Innen beworben, es konnten fünfundzwanzig Teilnehmende aufgenommen werden. Der Kurs bestand aus zwölf interdisziplinären Webinaren und einer Sommerschule, die letztes Jahr in Island stattfand. Die Bewerbungsfrist für das zweite Jahr lief bis 15. Dezember, und ein dritter Kurs wird in 2023 stattfinden.

Sophia, 2022

In her book To be Born (2017), Luce Irigaray offers a novel philosophy of the child. Instead of v... more In her book To be Born (2017), Luce Irigaray offers a novel philosophy of the child. Instead of viewing the child as a bearer of rights and in need of adequate care as is common in contemporary philosophies of childhood, Irigaray presents the child as a metaphor of a new human being which represents natural belonging. The rearticulation of the human has been ongoing in Irigaray's philosophy from its beginnings with its efforts to give voice to the excluded, silenced, repressed feminine. Irigaray's phenomenological restructuring of subjectivity in her philosophy of sexuate difference is taken to a new level with her philosophy of the child. Her conception of the child is interpreted here in light of the experiential and affective turn within phenomenology and cognitive sciences about philosophical thinking as embodied and embedded thinking for a new era. Irigaray sheds light on the silencing and repressing of the child within us in an effort to enable us as adult beings to think from and with it. Philosophical thinking needs to be more consciously connected with the embodied sources of thought that are already present in early infancy and continue to be present in adult thinking as neglected or repressed experiential and affective layers of thought. Irigaray's philosophy of the child is a basis for a methodology of embodied philosophical thinking such as has been developed within Claire Petitmengin's microphenomenology and within Eugene Gendlin's methodology of philosophical thinking from the felt sense.

Nietzsche Studien, 2020

Recent discussions have connected Nietzsche's philosophy of masculinity to the return of authorit... more Recent discussions have connected Nietzsche's philosophy of masculinity to the return of authoritarian politics. Neoconservative debates about masculinity, and rightwing extremism, explicitly refer back to Nietzsche's philosophy and often present democratization, a feminization of society, and political correctness as responsible for a weakening of masculinity. One example for this reception of Nietzsche's writings is Jordan Peterson's psychological diagnosis of a presumed crisis of masculinity. This article undertakes a comparison of Nietzsche's philosophy of masculinities with Pe terson's neoJungian psychology of masculinity in the context of recent conceptualiza tions of patriarchy, misogyny, and gendered forms of ressentiment. This comparison will highlight that Nietzsche's conception of masculinity is more complex, and has philosophically more to offer, than neoconservative ideas about masculinity that one sidedly foreground male strength. Finally it will be pointed out how a Jungian anal ysis discloses aspects of the Dionysian that are of relevance to contemporary gender studies of Nietzsche's philosophy. Nietzsches Rede vom Menschen als dominantes "U e b e r T h i e r " (MA I 40) wird oft im Kontext einer Philosophe der Männlichkeit gesehen.1 Gibt es wirklich etwas Neues zu diesem Thema zu sagen? Ist nicht Nietzsches Philosophieren über Männlichkeiten meist misogyn und patriarchal? Alle Welt kennt seine berühmtberüchtigten Sätze wie etwa den aus Also sprach Zarathustra, wo Nietzsche Zarathustra behaupten lässt, der "Mann soll zum Kriege erzogen werden und das Weib zur Erholung des Kriegers" (Za I, Von alten und jungen Weiblein). Wie könnten Nietzsches philosophische Über legungen über Mannsein und Maskulinität mehr bieten als ein historisch längst über holtes Modell, das für die heutigen Debatten über Männlichkeiten belanglos ist?2 Die Sache scheint klar, und trotzdem möchte ich versuchen, zu einigen aktuellen Fragen 1 Dieser Aufsatz ist eine überarbeitete Fassung eines Vortrages beim NietzscheKolloquium in Sils Maria vom September 2019 mit dem Titel "Das dominante UeberThier. Nietzsches Konstruktionen von Männlichkeit." 2 Das ist auch die Schlussfolgerung von Tom Digbys Interpretation von Nietzsches Philosophie der Maskulinität und heterosexuellen Beziehungen im Zeichen eines Antagonismus von Herr und Sklave. Digby spekuliert aber zudem, dass Nietzsche nicht seine eigene persönliche Meinung mitteile, Nietzsche-Studien 49 (2020), 52-70

53 women philosophers (one for each week of the year) introduced in short texts.

Greinarnar eftir Arendt sem hér birtast gefa góða innsýn í helstu viðfangsefni hennar og fjalla um samband heimspeki og stjórnmála, alræði, illsku mannsins og mannréttindi.

Sigríður Þorgiersdóttir ritar inngang um ævi og verk Arendt og tengir stjórnmálaheimspeki hennar við umræðuna um kreppu í stjórnmálum samtímans og mögulegar leiðir út úr henni

Hugur 33, 2022

Hugur, 2022

How to Think Critically and Ignite Understanding: The Embodied and Experiential Turn in the Train... more How to Think Critically and Ignite Understanding: The Embodied and Experiential Turn in the Training of Critical Thinking
The philosophy and teaching of critical thinking have played a central role in Icelandic academic philosophy since the establishment of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Iceland in 1972. Páll Skúlason’s article (1987) which explores the possibility of teaching critical thinking, marks a significant starting point. To provide clarity and elucidate the primary features of this approach to critical thinking, we distinguish three traditions of critical thinking.
Firstly, there is the tradition of critical thinking as a rational mode of thought and logical argumentation. Secondly, we find the tradition of social critical thinking, often associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Thirdly, we introduce a more recent approach of embodied critical thinking, based in phenomenological, pragmatist, hermeneutical, feminist thinking and the turn to embodiment in the cognitive sciences. In an international research and training project to which we belong our aim extends beyond merely answering whether critical thinking can be taught, as Skúlason did. We endeavor to address how critical thinking can be more effectively cultivated using methods grounded in embodied and experiential thinking.
We discuss the theoretical foundations of this approach, drawing from phenomenological and pragmatic philosophies, as well as the methodologies that have been developed based on these foundations.

Nietzsche- Studien 51 (2022), 271–295, 2022

Information Philosophie, 2022

Sophia, 2022

Nietzsche Studien, 2020

Sophia, 2020

Shame in the deep sense of fear of exposure of human vulnerability (and not in the narrower sense... more Shame in the deep sense of fear of exposure of human vulnerability (and not in the narrower sense of individual transgression or fault) has been identified as one mood or disposition of philosophical thinking. Philosophical imaginary, disciplinary identity and misogynistic vocabulary testify to a collective, underlying, unprocessed shame inherent to the (Western) philosophical tradition like Le Doeuff (1989), Butler (2004) and Murphy (2012) have pointed out. One aspect of collective philosophical shame has to do with disgust of or denial of embodiment insofar as it poses a threat to ideals of sovereignty and rationality (Nussbaum 2006). Embodiment reveals finitude, being dependent and exposed to others (Sartre 1984; Merleau-Ponty 2012; Landweer 1999; Zahavi 2014), and ultimately points to human vulnerability as rooted in an experience of fear of shame (Gilson 2016). If the inability to process shame of embodiment has resulted in disembodied notions of the human being that may lead to defensiveness, aggression or violence, how can a constructive processing of shame based on an embodied notion of the human being result in a way of philosophical thinking that is more vulnerable? And how can philosophical thinking that has its point of departure in vulnerability, neither in the sense of the victim nor the hero but as a self-conscious emotion, lead to philosophical dialogues that can unsettle vicious cycles of shaming and blaming and are productive for deepening philosophical reflection? Susan Brison's (2002) work on sexual violence will finally be discussed as an example of such a philosophy. Shame in the deep sense of collective fear of exposure of human vulnerability (and not in the narrower sense of individual transgression or fault) 1 has been identified as one mood or disposition of philosophical thinking. Shame has been a political affect within Western philosophy, a collective, ethical and social emotion that has determined some Sophia https://doi.

Sophia International Journal of Philosophy and Traditions, 2020

Shame in the deep sense of fear of exposure of human vulnerability (and not in the narrower sense... more Shame in the deep sense of fear of exposure of human vulnerability (and not in the narrower sense of individual transgression or fault) has been identified as one mood or disposition of philosophical thinking. Philosophical imaginary, disciplinary identity and misogynistic vocabulary testify to a collective, underlying, unprocessed shame inherent to the (Western) philosophical tradition like Le Doeuff (1989), Butler (2004) and Murphy (2012) have pointed out. One aspect of collective philosophical shame has to do with disgust of or denial of embodiment insofar as it poses a threat to ideals of sovereignty and rationality (Nussbaum 2006). Embodiment reveals finitude, being dependent and exposed to others (Sartre 1984; Merleau-Ponty 2012; Landweer 1999; Zahavi 2014), and ultimate- ly points to human vulnerability as rooted in an experience of fear of shame (Gilson 2016). If the inability to process shame of embodiment has resulted in disembodied notions of the human being that may lead to defensiveness, aggression or violence, how can a construc- tive processing of shame based on an embodied notion of the human being result in a way of philosophical thinking that is more vulnerable? And how can philosophical thinking that has its point of departure in vulnerability, neither in the sense of the victim nor the hero but as a self-conscious emotion, lead to philosophical dialogues that can unsettle vicious cycles of shaming and blaming and are productive for deepening philosophical reflection? Susan Brison’s (2002) work on sexual violence will finally be discussed as an example of such a philosophy.

Sophia International Journal of Philosophy and Traditions, 2020

Shame in the deep sense of fear of exposure of human vulnerability (and not in the narrower sense... more Shame in the deep sense of fear of exposure of human vulnerability (and not in the narrower sense of individual transgression or fault) has been identified as one mood or disposition of philosophical thinking. Philosophical imaginary, disciplinary identity and misogynistic vocabulary testify to a collective, underlying, unprocessed shame inherent to the (Western) philosophical tradition like Le Doeuff (1989), Butler (2004) and Murphy (2012) have pointed out. One aspect of collective philosophical shame has to do with disgust of or denial of embodiment insofar as it poses a threat to ideals of sovereignty and rationality (Nussbaum 2006). Embodiment reveals finitude, being dependent and exposed to others (Sartre 1984; Merleau-Ponty 2012; Landweer 1999; Zahavi 2014), and ultimate- ly points to human vulnerability as rooted in an experience of fear of shame (Gilson 2016). If the inability to process shame of embodiment has resulted in disembodied notions of the human being that may lead to defensiveness, aggression or violence, how can a construc- tive processing of shame based on an embodied notion of the human being result in a way of philosophical thinking that is more vulnerable? And how can philosophical thinking that has its point of departure in vulnerability, neither in the sense of the victim nor the hero but as a self-conscious emotion, lead to philosophical dialogues that can unsettle vicious cycles of shaming and blaming and are productive for deepening philosophical reflection? Susan Brison’s (2002) work on sexual violence will finally be discussed as an example of such a philosophy.
Keywords Shame.Gender.Philosophy.Vulnerability.Embodied thinking

Nietzsche discusses the emotional level of the love of the sexes in apho-rism 363 of The Gay Scie... more Nietzsche discusses the emotional level of the love of the sexes in apho-rism 363 of The Gay Science where he claims that men and women have different prejudices about love. The basic dynamics of love in GS 363 are explained in terms of the woman who gives herself and the man who takes. How can this model offer more than a reactionary idea of an opposition of a submissive woman and dominating man? It will be argued that a deeper understanding of giving oneself and taking does not warrant an opposition in the sense of a master-slave relation. The preconditions for giving and taking in Nietzsche's philosophy disclose a richer idea of giving and taking as a dynamic and mutually transformative interaction of partners in love. Zusammenfassung: Nietzsche behandelt die emotionale Ebene der Liebe der Ge-schlechter im Aphorismus 363 der Fröhlichen Wissenschaft, wo er behauptet, Männer und Frauen hätten hinsichtlich der Liebe unterschiedliche Vorurteile. Laut FW 363 besteht die grundlegende Dynamik der Liebe in der gebenden Frau und dem nehmen-den Mann. Wie kann dieses Modell mehr als eine bloß reaktionäre Sichtweise auf den dominierenden Mann und die unterwürfige Frau hergeben? Ein tieferes Verständnis von Geben und Nehmen in Nietzsches Philosophie lässt eine oberflächliche Lesart dieses Modells als einer Herr-Sklaven-Beziehung jedoch nicht zu. Die Voraussetzun-gen von Geben und Nehmen, die Nietzsche diskutiert, erschließen eine reichere Vor-stellung von einer dynamischen und wechselseitig transformativen Interaktion in der Liebesbeziehung.

Að lesa yfir Heimspeki eða að hlusta á visku hennar 1 Um það leyti sem ég var að hefja nám í heim... more Að lesa yfir Heimspeki eða að hlusta á visku hennar 1 Um það leyti sem ég var að hefja nám í heimspeki faerði móðir mín mér bók að gjöf. Þetta var eitt af víðlesnustu ritum miðaldaheimspeki, Huggun heimspekinn-ar eftir Bóethíus (480–524) eða De Consolatione Philosophiae. Titillinn höfðaði ekki til mín á þeim tíma. Huggun eða hugfró hljómaði of guðfraeðilega í mínum eyrum vegna þess að ég hafði sótt námskeið í guðfraeði milli menntaskóla-og háskólanáms sem hafði í senn heillað mig og gert mig fráhverfa. Sannleikur í guðfraeði birtist mér sem huggandi sannleikur og mitt unga sjálf taldi sig þurfa frekar á gagnrýni á sannleika að halda. Þá kom heimspekin með sitt opna viðhorf um að spyrjast gagnrýnið fyrir um það sem þykir sjálfgefið. Við þetta upphaf lífs míns í heimspeki birtist Huggun heimspekinnar mér ekki eins og hún átti eftir að gera eftir áratuga kynni við hina vestraenu hefð heimspekinnar. Undrun mín var ekki lítil þegar ég fletti þessari bók sem hafði eytt áratugum í þögn í bókahillum og flutningakössum. Þetta er hádramatískt verk sem minnir nokkuð á síðustu daga Sókratesar. Heimspekingurinn Bóethíus, sem hafði verið í hárri stöðu sem embaettismaður og pólitískur ráðgjafi, bíður dóms og síðar aftöku í stofufangelsi. Ólíkt Sókratesi hafði hann ekki fengið taekifaeri til að halda raeðu sér til málsvarn-ar við réttarhöld, og hann er aleinn í fangelsinu án vina eða vandamanna á þessum myrka tíma. Í örvaentingu sinni snýr þessi maður, sem var einn helsti heimspek-ingur sinnar samtíðar, sér til heimspekinnar til að leita sér huggunar. Ritið hefst á lýsingu Bóethíusar á því hvernig heimspekin birtist honum sem Heimspeki (Philosophia), kvengervingur heimspekilegrar visku: Þar sem ég íhugaði þetta þögull með sjálfum mér og festi á blað með aðstoð skriffaeris harma og raunir, hafði sést standa naerri mér, yfir höfði, 1 Ég þakka kollega mínum Gunnari Harðarsyni fyrir yfirlestur á þessari grein og samraeður um efnið.

The concept of the human being is at the core of the humanities insofar they centre on the human ... more The concept of the human being is at the core of the humanities insofar they centre on the human being and humanity. As a core discipline of the humanities, philosophy has always advanced concepts of the human being with its notions of the epistemic subject, the moral subject and the political subject. These notions have traditionally been anthropocentric, disembodied and individualistic, emphasizing autonomy and independence. Environmental ethics has since its beginning as a subfield of philosophical ethics in the late 20th century been based on a concept of the human being as embodied and as embedded in nature and the environment. This concept of the human being yields a relational and contextual concept of the self that modifies strict distintinctions between the human and non-human, man and nature, the subject and the object. The most recent developments within environmental ethics, linked with posthumanism, consist in a further critque of the subject of humanism with its extension of subjectivities beyond the human being. The Kárahnjúkar-debate, an environmental debate that took place in Iceland, will be examined in light of these developments within environmental ethics.

Art, Ethics and Environment: A Free Inquiry Into the Vulgarly Received Notion of Nature, 2006

Nietzscheforschung Band 5/6, 2000

Peripherie und Zentrum im Feld der Theorie, 2012

A number of recent environmental philosophers (Vogel, Morton, Latour) have proclaimed the end of ... more A number of recent environmental philosophers (Vogel, Morton, Latour) have proclaimed the end of nature. They oppose what they consider to be an outdated view of nature as a basis for environmental philosophy and political ecology. Instead of " thinking like a mountain " (Leopold), we should begin " thinking like a mall " (Vogel). These end-of-nature thinkers claim that the concept of nature in environmental discourses is bound to be something that is outside of us because man is understood as doing something to nature. Without putting forth a clearly defined concept of " nature, " we argue that proclaiming the end of nature is misguided. This proclamation means forgetting the body. If we really want to get beyond understanding nature as something outside of us, and truly sense and understand ourselves as natural or environmental beings who are a part of the earth's ecosystem , we should direct our attention to how nature as the biotic, inner/outer environment is experienced and sensed in and through our bodies. We thus suggest that environmental philosophy should encourage sensing like embodied beings before introducing notions like thinking like a mountain, mall, water, or a plant for that matter. This approach is among other things based on the phenom-emology of the body (Merleau-Ponty) and phenomenolo-gy of the real (Conrad-Martius). "

Is there a crisis of philosophy as an academic subject different from the continuous sense of cri... more Is there a crisis of philosophy as an academic subject different from the continuous sense of crisis that has always spurred philosophical thinking? Yes there is. I will discuss aspects of this crisis and give examples of how feminist and transnational approaches within philosophy offer means to counter it.

Die Philosophie, so Enrique Dussel, wurde in ihren kreativen Phasen eher in der Peripherie als im... more Die Philosophie, so Enrique Dussel, wurde in ihren kreativen Phasen eher in der Peripherie als im Zentrum betrieben. Bedeutende Philosophen, wie etwa Arendt, Heidegger und Nietzsche, haben ihr Denken im Abstand zum Zentrum der Philosophie definiert. In der herrschenden Philosophie der Gegenwart werden bestimmte Strömungen der Philosophie, wie z.B. Philosophien der Geschlechter und der Differenz sowie bestimmte Spielarten der kontinentalen Philosophie marginalisiert oder gar ausgegrenzt. So berichten etwa Judith Butler und Rosi Braidotti, dass sie ihre Philosophie „out of Bounds“, d.h. ausserhalb der philosophischen Institute fortentwickeln mussten. Führt diese Entwicklung längerfristig dazu, dass sich die universitäre Mainstream-Philosophie in ihrem angestammten Zentrum isoliert und von ihrer Lebensquelle abgeschnitten wird? Braucht die Philosophie gerade ihre Peripherie? Die Vorlesung geht diesen Fragen an Hand von zwei Beispielen nach. Zum einen werden Erfahrungen mit bestimmten Versuchen, den Kanon der Philosophie als Universitätsfach auszuweiten, dargestellt und diskutiert. Zum anderern wird von einer konkreten Erfahrung mit transnationalen Geschlechterstudien berichtet, die als Prozess einer Selbsttransformation im Umgang mit dem Anderen verstanden werden kann (siehe www.gest.hi.is).

Sigridur Thorgeirsdottir hat Philosophie in Boston und Berlin studiert und in Berlin über die Philosophie Nietzsches promoviert. Seit 1997 ist sie Professorin der Philosophie an der Universität Islands. Sie hat über die Philosophie Nietzsches, Arendts und Beauvoirs, feministische Philosophie und Philosophie der Natur und des Leibes veröffentlicht. Zu ihren Buchveröffentlichungen gehören Vis creativa. Kunst und Wahrheit in der Philosophie Nietzsches (1996), Birth, Death and Femininity. Philosophies of Embodiment (zusammen mit R. Schott (Hsg.), S. Heinämaa und V. Songe-Möller) (2010), The Body Unbound. Philosophical Perspectives on Politics, Embodiment and Religion, hsg. zusammen mit O.Sigurdson und M.T. Mjaaland (2010). Thorgeirsdottir ist im wissenschaftlichen Beirat der Nietzsche Studien, Vorstandsvorsitzende des Gender Equality Studies and Training Programmes und im Vorstand des EDDA Centers of Excellence an der Universität Island.

Chapter in Gabriel Malenfant (ed.), Inquiring into Contemporary Icelandic Philosophy. Chapters ab... more Chapter in Gabriel Malenfant (ed.), Inquiring into Contemporary Icelandic Philosophy. Chapters about contemporar Icelandic philosophers. This one is about Sigridur Thorgeirsdottir.

Skálholt, Iceland

This interdisciplinary symposium is intended to bring together innovative g/local expertise in ph... more This interdisciplinary symposium is intended to bring together innovative g/local expertise in philosophy and pedagogy, ecofeminism, policy, theology, biosocial cultural studies and theories and practices of embodied critical thinking, to configure equitable and realistic ways for life on earth to survive the Anthropocene. Our focus is shared with the natural environment, understood as a sentient partner with inherent values beyond purely commodification and economic frameworks. In recognising the natural environment as an agent in its own becoming, the symposium aims to 'breath with nature', as a companion. We further aim to better understand and work towards resolving the perceived clash between nature, culture, ethics and policy, through new conceptual thinking and engagement that champions an elemental philosophy of connectivity and respect. Developing 'elemental literacy' to transpose current understandings of: what/how nature is, how it is acted upon, and how it acts upon, constitutes a primary focus for this symposium that seeks to imagine and dynamically participate in: new, complex and adaptive possibilities, environmental management provocations and reforms, and philosophical analyses of restorative ecological justice pathways, both conceptually and practically. Intelligent (informed, perceptive/interoceptive) partnership with the natural and more-than-human world (broadly understood), and human culture, within the frameworks of policy decision-making, is crucial for a connected and ethical way forward for life on planet earth. The climate change crisis increasingly demonstrates that we stand at the precipice of change. We are changing the face of the earth. How humans continue to do that change, matters in this Anthropocene crisis that has been largely produced by human recklessness. Our aim and hope is to restore our biosocial relationships and elemental sensibilities, and our forgotten ontologico-environmental-material being.