Ruth Irwin | RMIT University (original) (raw)

Books by Ruth Irwin

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Palgrave Macmillan, 2018

This book explores why the concept of wild pedagogy is an essential aspect of education in these ... more This book explores why the concept of wild pedagogy is an essential aspect of education in these times; a re-negotiated education that acknowledges the necessity of listening to voices in a more than human world, and (re)learning how to dwell in a place. As the geological epoch inexorably shifts to the Anthropocene, the authors argue that learning to live in and engage with the world is increasingly crucial in such times of uncertainty. The editors and contributors examine what wild pedagogy can truly become, and how it can be relevant across disciplinary boundaries: offering six touchstones as working tools to help educators forge an onward path. This collaborative work will be of interest to students and scholars of wild pedagogies, alternative education and the Anthropocene, and for all those engaged in re-wilding education.

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This book has 22 chapters by reknowned New Zealand authors on a variety of realms that have been ... more This book has 22 chapters by reknowned New Zealand authors on a variety of realms that have been affected by neoliberal ideology. It offers suggestions to move beyond the free market faith and explore new territories for politics, policy and values. Each chapter is direct and straight forward. It does not assume any prior knowledge. This is a fantastic book for lay audiences and experts alike.

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Papers by Ruth Irwin

Continuum eBooks, 2010

... of Human Nature, Justin Skirry Descartes&amp;#x27; Theory of Ideas, David Clemenson D... more ... of Human Nature, Justin Skirry Descartes&amp;#x27; Theory of Ideas, David Clemenson Dialectic of Romanticism, Peter Murphy and David Roberts Hegel and the Analytic Tradition, edited by Angelica Nuzzo Hegel&amp;#x27;s Philosophy of Language, Jim Vernon Hegel&amp;#x27;s Philosophy of Right ...

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Routledge eBooks, Jun 9, 2020

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Philosophy as Practice in the Ecological Emergency, 2023

Individual rationality continues to underpin political policy making and economics, despite the s... more Individual rationality continues to underpin political policy making and economics, despite the sustained critique from many realms of philosophy, psychology, and physics. In this chapter I look at three of these realms; quantum physics, feminist embodiment, and Maori philosophy to rethink classical individualism and how it can be replaced with a more integrated, environmental symbiosis. Quantum physics offers us entanglement, and the observer effect, which demonstrates that at the most basic levels, the world is better understood as waves of interference, rather than discrete ‘objects’. The feminist critique of Cartesian individualism dissolves the harsh separation between subject and object, culture and nature. Maori concepts of whenua and whakapapa are an ancient taxonomy that integrates the genealogy of the human with the genealogy of the earth. These three modes of understanding explicate how integrated we each are, how communal speech, history, and environment together provokes a new orientation for policy and economics, which positions the environment at its heart, instead of ignoring it as an ‘externality.’ The significance of these ideas can shift the horizon of thought, and extend the philosophy of politics and policy to an eco-social paradigm.

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New Zealand sociology, 2015

Beyond Neoliberalism in New Zealand: An Extended Book Review Cook, D., Hill, C., Baskett, P., and... more Beyond Neoliberalism in New Zealand: An Extended Book Review Cook, D., Hill, C., Baskett, P., and Irwin, R. (eds.) (2014) Beyond the Free Market: Rebuilding a Just Society in New Zealand. Auckland: Dunmore Publishing: 184 pages. ISBN: 978-1-927212-18-9This book offers a revealing insight into the state of the ideological struggle against the neoliberal project in New Zealand. Written in the form of twenty five short and accessibly written chapters, the book includes a broad though somewhat idiosyncratic collection of contributions from activists, academics, politicians, trade unionists, journalists, civil servants, and a cartoonist. The contributions are united by strong social democratic values and an enduring opposition to New Zealand's three-decades-long free market path. Ideologically to the Left of the mainstream of the Labour Party but Right of the Marxist Left, the authors represent the dominant perspective of the movement against the neoliberal project in New Zealand. As...

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1. Globalisation and the Environment 2. Climate Change and the Crisis of Philosophy 3. Social Con... more 1. Globalisation and the Environment 2. Climate Change and the Crisis of Philosophy 3. Social Conscience and Global Market 4. Categories, Environmental Indicators, and the Enlightenment Market 5. Pessimistic Realism or Total Management 6. Population Statistics and Modern Governmentality 7. Pragmatism 8. Heidegger, the Origin and the Finitude of Civilisation 9. Technology and the Kultur Late Modernity 10. Embodied Subjectivity and the Critique of Modernity Conclusion Bibliography Index.

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Encyclopedia of Educational Innovation, 2022

Over the last 200 years, industrial technology reshaped the world in the vision of humanist progr... more Over the last 200 years, industrial technology reshaped the world in the vision of humanist progress and individual Enlightenment. For the next centuries, climate change and environmental degradation will contest those assumptions. This makes room for new and ancient ways of knowing to reshape the post-humanist world in a vision of integrated socioecology, that embraces new ideas in quantum physics and ancient ideas in indigenous, embodied philosophy to rejuvenate the ecological and the cultural as fundamentally entwined. Memory has been defined as an individual 'cache' situated in the brain, but indigenous ecological technologies and kinship relations across all strata define memory in new ways. Generational learning takes place as synaptic rerouting associated with significant ecological events and places. This substantive shift in ethos will have a profound impact on the types of schooling that takes place.

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New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies

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Religions

Science and technology have been associated with modern Enlightenment, in a manner that elevated ... more Science and technology have been associated with modern Enlightenment, in a manner that elevated the rational mind over emotions and the body, a separation of the subjective mind from the object of observation, universal categories, objective observation, and linear causality. These assumptions, consolidated by Descartes and then Kant, have underpinned the philosophies of science, economics, policy, and political theory. They have shaped the modern world and enabled corporate freedom to exploit all ‘resources’ in the name of consumerism and global trade. Idealism has alienated subjective rationality from an idealised universal created world. In contrast, ancient indigenous ways of knowing are emerging as better exemplars of the interrelationship between individuals, communities, and organic and anorganic life forms. Celtic shapeshifters and praise poems forge an interwoven dance of geology, weather, plants, animals, and humanity with wisdom and politics. The Māori concept of whakapa...

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Educational Philosophy and Theory

"...members of the Editorial Development Group explore the nature of digital spaces, alo... more "...members of the Editorial Development Group explore the nature of digital spaces, along with the philosophical advantages and drawbacks that those spaces offer. We are also fortunate to have two highly interesting open reviews that reflect and expand on some of themes. Overall, our aim is not so much to draw a line through digital spaces but underneath them - to underscore their vulnerabilities as well as their potential conviviality with certain areas of philosophical thought."

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$Research paper thumbnail of Climate Change and Heidegger\u27s Philosophy of Science$

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Bioinformational Philosophy and Postdigital Knowledge Ecologies

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Policy Futures in Education, 2021

The world is changing, but political and educational institutions appears to be stuck in the 19th... more The world is changing, but political and educational institutions appears to be stuck in the 19th century. Modern policy and education are both premised on an Enlightenment assumption of the human, rational, individual subject. Increasingly, elements of these philosophical premises are being interrogated. The critique emerges from the environmental interest in collapsing the dualism between subject and object, and reintegrating the human with/in our ecological context. Indigenous philosophy is important for rethinking the integration of the dualism between humanity and ecology. Maori philosophy is a vital counterpoint to the anthropomorphic position of modern policy and education. Taking Maori concepts to inform contemporary philosophy generates a substantive shift in world view that does not lose sight of the solipsist, phenomenological parameters of human sense making, but enables us to make deeper ethical decisions, and transform the basis of education and policy.

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ploring the relations between philosophy and education, includ-ing work on Nietzsche, Wittgenstei... more ploring the relations between philosophy and education, includ-ing work on Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and contempo-rary French and German thought. His most recent book are

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Palgrave Macmillan, 2018

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Continuum eBooks, 2010

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Routledge eBooks, Jun 9, 2020

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Philosophy as Practice in the Ecological Emergency, 2023

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New Zealand sociology, 2015

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Encyclopedia of Educational Innovation, 2022

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New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies

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Religions

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Educational Philosophy and Theory

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$Research paper thumbnail of Climate Change and Heidegger\u27s Philosophy of Science$

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Bioinformational Philosophy and Postdigital Knowledge Ecologies

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Policy Futures in Education, 2021

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Educational Theory, 2017

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Essays in Philosophy, 2010

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Educational Studies in Japan, 2017

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Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning, 2019

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Policy Futures in Education, 2015

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Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2016

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Futures, 2019

Colonialism has wrought great injustices across many indigenous people at the during the modern p... more Colonialism has wrought great injustices across many indigenous people at the during the modern period. Maori exercise unique negotiating skills to productively engage with the power dynamics of colonialism and modernity. This dialogue between Te Haumoana White and Ruth Irwin illuminates the ongoing pressures of modernity and colonialism, unique Maori approaches to ownership, and a deep understanding of power and politics. This dialogue traces historic injustice and contemporary innovations that seek to resuscitate the landscape and the community in, through, and around modern legal and technological onto-epistemologies. At the cutting edge of contemporary technology, AI is using algorithms to aggregate and sift political communities online. Te Haumoana White's insights on land, environment, people and law are reflected on the AI tendency to advocate for the manipulation of popular opinion in the aggregation of AI algorithms. The computer science community who advocate AI seem to have little understanding of political theory, political economics outside the tired and outdated neoliberal paradigm, nor how voice constitutes politics. Thus, Tegmark and others in the AI genre, tend to advocate a 'benign dictatorship' model, based on a combination of neoliberalism and algorithms that are vulnerable to exacerbation and manipulation of popularist trends.

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Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2019

Understanding climate change is becoming an urgent requirement for those in education. The normat... more Understanding climate change is becoming an urgent requirement for those in education. The normative values of education have long been closely aligned with the global, modernised world. The industrial model has underpinned the hidden and overt curriculum. Increasingly though, a new eco-centric orientation to economics, technology, and social organisation is beginning to shape up the post-carbon world. Unless education is up to date with the issues of climate change, the estate of education will be unable to meet its task of knowledge transfer. This paper covers the basic science and ethical policy debates, and begins to outline the questions that will necessarily entangle education as we orientate ourselves to the new world that is upon us.

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ducational Studies in Japan: International Yearbook No. 11, March, , 2017

Teleological progress is the underlying motif of modern culture, and informs education, innovatio... more Teleological progress is the underlying motif of modern culture, and informs education, innovation, and economic development. Progress includes a gradual increase in consumerism. Since the 1940s, the Keynesian Settlement and its embedded belief in progress is legislated in exponential 2-3% economic growth. Unfortunately, climate change is a direct result of the increasing amounts of CO2e byproduct that gets expelled in the production of plastic consumer items, and this production increases exponentially year on year. We are now hearing serious concerns from scientists about the sixth great extinction, the Anthropocene epoch, and the end of modernity in ecological collapse. In this article I argue that climate change is an outcome of our dedication to progress and consumerism and I try and unravel the mechanics of exponential economic growth in contrast to an alternative model of economics and debt, fi rst developed in Mesopotamia about 5000 years ago. The contrast may not be operationalisable in modern times, but it does offer a signifi cant counter-argument to the concept of progress and shows that Steady State economics has been successfully implemented by a continuous civilization for thousands of years. The depth of the philosophical shift is illuminated in the understanding of Mesopotamian theology, astronomy, astrology, and understanding of cyclic, rather than linear, time. This type of critical account highlights the need for education to fundamentally challenge some key norms in modernity, from 'pro-gress' to the sense of entitlement that consumerism and economic growth provide. Education is a key site for cultural transition, and as the constraints of climate change are making ever more clear, the moment to mobilise the educational sector is here.

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Futures, 2019

What is life? The question is not merely "What is the meaning of life?" but rather, what is life ... more What is life? The question is not merely "What is the meaning of life?" but rather, what is life itself? We are living in an Age of Extinction, with human global organisation generating ecocide on a scale not seen since the dinosaurs. Thirty-nine million acres of tropical forests were destroyed in 2017 alone (World Resources Institute), to make way for industrial agriculture. Extremes of wealth, and extremes of poverty are getting worse. Capitalist exploitation is several hundred years old, and has rapidly reshaped the globe. This paper considers wise futures, taking into account two competing world views, both of which contribute a great deal to a shift in our ways of understanding life: life, technology, ecology, and our participation in the life-world. From the perspective of climate change, indigenous philosophy has a lot to offer the world, as we face the necessary shift from an exploitative, extractive economy, to a more sustainable one. Indigenous philosophy has an integrated cosmology that recognises how the people are a part of local ecologies, not set in a contrasting relationship of subject from object. Maori philosophy sets out a taxonomy of relationships defined as a genealogy of connection, or whakapapa. Human beings are one species embedded in a network of familial relations with ecological place. There is no separation or alienation of people from the land. The governorship is correspondingly deeply involved in preserving and protecting ecological systems, or helping the ecosystem to thrive. 'Ownership' is not designed to be bought and sold, but rather to allocate areas of resources in association with expertise, farms to farmers, pounamu or greenstone to carvers, access to trees for boat builders, and so on. These roles carry with them a responsibility of ecological sensitivity. All political systems are at the service of ecology, because the assumption is that healthy ecology produces healthy communities. These views translate well into a highly technological, contemporary world. In contrast, the Enlightenment traditions have emphasized the individual subject in a mastery position vis a vis 'objects' of knowledge. The whole motif of subjective epistemology, and more lately, constructivist interpretation, is that subjective understanding or knowledge production is more important than the objects of study, which are subjected (if you will) to the interpretation of the individual. Even collective epistemologies in philosophy of language tend to emphasise human rationality and consciousness as elevated, privileged, and masterful over their objects of study. Neoliberalism is a consistent form of modern economics that emerged from this stock of enlightenment assumptions. Ironically, Artificial Intelligence (AI), which is iconic in its neoliberal politics, is radically realigning our understanding of rationality, information, taxonomy, intelligence and governance. In this paper, we take the indigenous understanding of governance, of land, and of people's place as land rather than against land and show how ideas from AI confirm the rhizomatic taxonomy of indigenous philosophy but retains an unhealthy extractive economic model, which continues to ignore the perils of climate change, pollution, exploitative industrial mining and a manipulative oligarchical governance model that rests on unexamined assumptions about the ownership and growth models of economics. The ultimate provocation is that AI learns to self-replicate-one of the hallmarks of being 'alive'-and no longer needs humanity as a vector of reproduction or evolution. For Tegmark, and others, this is a frightening prospect. It renders humanity redundant, inadequate, and unemployed. But there are other possibilities. It also opens the question of "What is life" and how life is interconnected. It shifts humanity out of the driving seat, and back to one species in an ecological diversity of beings. Potentially it could take

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Educational Theory, 2017

Education is increasingly vocational, at the service of the continuous exponential increase in ec... more Education is increasingly vocational, at the service of the continuous exponential increase in economic growth, while climate change is an outcome of these same economic values and praxes. All attempts to come up with technological or values shifts keep getting absorbed and overcome by the pressing motif of economic growth. This chapter uses Heidegger's concept of the technological enframing of modernity, to view Keynes' notion of economic growth, which he called the 'multiplier', and the pace of consumerism that has taken over every aspect of knowing about the world we live in. The article asks us to think through our technological enframing anew by looking to an early mechanical Greek artefact, the Antikythera Mechanism. It portrays a cyclical notion of time, defining the rhythm of economic growth and degrowth in the State. This earth centric cosmos helped Occidental economies stay within the parameters of the local ecology, with economic growth that is not exponential but cyclical, teaching us about steady state civilisations that survive for millennia. An earth centric cosmology creates a different set of values, where the pace of consumerism needs to be governed, rather than being allowed free reign 'as by an Invisible Hand'. The role of education is twofold in this exploration; it's a pivotal site for cultural exploration and transformation, and secondly, it's contained by the expectations of the State so while economic growth dictates those expectations, education is subservient to these values. If we aim to overcome climate change we need to transform the expectations from outside and within. Economics and education Neoliberal market economics has dominated the education sector to such a huge extent over the last 20 plus years, that it is hard to imagine that education has not always directly deferred to the economic imperative. The sector is seen through a market lens; schools compete with each other for 'consumers', teaching and learning is a 'product', schools serve to increase the human capital of students by 'adding value' through a series of accreditations, assessment is a means for the job market to judge the quality of educational 'outcomes', and thus the Human Capital of the student, and so forth. 1 Every layer of education can be understood through the neoliberal market metaphor. Partly this is a result of the market being seen as a universal, larger than any sector, larger than the planet; guided as though by (God's) Invisible Hand. 2 The economic imperative is both systematic and yet flexible enough to include innovation and profit. It includes a nod to equity and diversity. Apparently it trickles down wealth and

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Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2016

This article is concerned with developing a philosophical approach to a number of significant cha... more This article is concerned with developing a philosophical approach to a number of significant changes to academic publishing, and specifically the global journal knowledge system wrought by a range of new digital technologies that herald the third age of the journal as an electronic, interactive and mixed-media form of scientific communication. The paper emerges from an Editors' Collective, a small New Zealand-based organisation comprised of editors and reviewers of academic journals mostly in the fields of education and philosophy. The paper is the result of a collective writing process.

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Education is increasingly vocational, at the service of the continuous exponential increase in ec... more Education is increasingly vocational, at the service of the continuous exponential increase in economic growth, while climate change is an outcome of these same economic values and praxes. All attempts to come up with technological or values shifts keep getting absorbed and overcome by the pressing motif of economic growth. This chapter uses Heidegger's concept of the technological enframing of modernity, to view Keynes' notion of economic growth, which he called the 'multiplier', and the pace of consumerism that has taken over every aspect of knowing about the world we live in. The article asks us to think through our technological enframing anew by looking to an early mechanical Greek artefact, the Antikythera Mechanism. It portrays a cyclical notion of time, defining the rhythm of economic growth and degrowth in the State. This earth centric cosmos helped Occidental economies stay within the parameters of the local ecology, with economic growth that is not exponential but cyclical, teaching us about steady state civilisations that survive for millennia. An earth centric cosmology creates a different set of values, where the pace of consumerism needs to be governed, rather than being allowed free reign 'as by an Invisible Hand'. The role of education is twofold in this exploration; it's a pivotal site for cultural exploration and transformation, and secondly, it's contained by the expectations of the State so while economic growth dictates those expectations, education is subservient to these values. If we aim to overcome climate change we need to transform the expectations from outside and within. Economics and education Neoliberal market economics has dominated the education sector to such a huge extent over the last 20 plus years, that it is hard to imagine that education has not always directly deferred to the economic imperative. The sector is seen through a market lens; schools compete with each other for 'consumers', teaching and learning is a 'product', schools serve to increase the human capital of students by 'adding value' through a series of accreditations, assessment is a means for the job market to judge the quality of educational 'outcomes', and thus the Human Capital of the student, and so forth.1 Every layer of education can be understood through the neoliberal market metaphor. Partly this is a result of the market being seen as a universal, larger than any sector, larger than the planet; guided as though by (God's) Invisible Hand.2 The economic imperative is both systematic and yet flexible enough to include innovation and profit. It includes a nod to equity and diversity. Apparently it trickles down wealth and thus caters to the needs of both the rich and the poor. The environment tends not to fare so

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From the personal to the political, from the individual to the efforts of entire nations, from gr... more From the personal to the political, from the individual to the efforts of entire nations, from green companies to the United Nations, climate change continues to worsen despite our “best efforts”. This paper examines the complexities of leadership, the reliance on traditional economics, and the complication of population growth, to outline the context and the possibilities for really transforming the dominant norms that are unable to avert increasing carbon dioxide equivalent emissions. Technology, ideas, and normalised practices peculiar to the modern world-view have created the conditions for our ¨uber-success but climate change shows us clearly that to be successful is not necessarily to flourish. To avoid continuing along the path of toxic excess we need to wean ourselves off the alienation that has been enabled by sceptical idealism and modern technology (Heidegger 1977).
I want to suggest that our world-view needs to change, and say that the concept “world-view” itself privileges a solipsist orientation and we need to re-imagine ourselves as part of the world-scape. The concept of world-scape rather than world-view reflects a shift in approach to the interaction between people and environment. I take an important Maori concept of whenua and contemplate it in a contemporary context. I argue that the indigenous close relationship of people with the land and can be thought through again, and include a politics of difference, all held within the embrace of the placenta, or whenua. This world view is both contemporary, global, and fully engaged with the health and wellbeing of the environment and other people.

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For Heidegger, poetics is not merely a genteel pastime, extraneous to the real work of finding sh... more For Heidegger, poetics is not merely a genteel pastime, extraneous to the real work of finding shelter, food and clothing as suggested by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Poetry has a more ‘essential’ role in human endeavour, bringing understanding of ‘Being’ from concealment and introducing it in original and originating ways into language. Language is, for Heidegger, the ‘house’ of Being. Heidegger regards poetics as a crucial means of rediscovering the appropriate relationship between ourselves and Being. In his early writings he tries to annihilate the ancient separation of the subject from the object which divorces humans as individuals from each other and from the earth. In the 1930s he discusses the ways that humanity becomes merely one object amongst all objects because of the technological enframing of everything as a consumable resource. In the light of reducing all beings to objects, nothing can be the subject of knowledge, and he acknowledges that there is some degree of significance to the age old separation of subjectivity. Poetics avoids the reduction of all knowledge to the objectification of technological enframing. Instead of constantly typifying all interaction, events, and objects as potentially consumable resources, poetics re-engages us with the task of what it is to be human – relating to beings as a whole. This paper explores the significance of poetics both in terms of the traditions of philosophical nominalism and in Heidegger’s schema of onto-theo-logy.

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Essays in Philosophy, 2010

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The question raised here is about the extent that liberal individualism and the consumerist ethos... more The question raised here is about the extent that liberal individualism and the consumerist ethos is the result of technology and to what extent is it the cultural norm of modernity. There has been a polarization in the way technology is understood. Predominantly it is assumed to be neutral but it can also be argued that technology exacerbates the understanding of people as ‘rational individual utility maximisers.’ C.A. Bowers argues that computer technology amplifies the conduit model of learning. The machine stores information and the student learns how to retrieve it and this constitutes neutral and objective research. Bowers advocates critical enquiry and an awareness of the socio-cultural factors that contribute to the generation of knowledge and community. The physiological parameters of machines are neither neutral nor strictly political. Technology shifts the constraints of phenomenological experience and encourages new and arguably impoverished ways of experiencing the world. However, by insisting on a critical dimension to understanding technology we could be able to transform education from its emphasis on vocationalism and governmentality to a more creative, equitable, and ecological set of factors.

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Studies in Philosophy of Education, 2003

This paper is a philosophical analysis ofHeidegger and Nietzsche's approach tometaphysics and the... more This paper is a philosophical analysis ofHeidegger and Nietzsche's approach tometaphysics and the associated problem ofnihilism. Heidegger sums up the history ofWestern metaphysics in a way which challengescommon sense approaches to values education.Through close attention to language, Heideggerargues that Nietzsche inverts thePlatonic-Christian tradition but retains theanthropocentric imposition of ‘values’. Ihave used Nietzsche's theory to suggest aslightly different definition of metaphysicsand nihilism which draws attention to theontological parameters of human truths as astruggle between competing sets of conflictingor contradictory values (perspectives) thatopens space for rethinking and re-educatinghuman possibilities. How this openness willshow up in educational theory and practice isonly beginning to be evoked. The twophilosophers indicate an approach to issues ofmorality, decision making and knowledgeproduction which may surprise and disconcerttraditional views. As the forefathers ofpost-structuralist thinking, Nietzsche andHeidegger offer a critique of Humanism whileretaining the Renaissance tradition ofpositioning education as the well spring ofvalues in society. It is through the generationof new knowledges, the development of critiqueand the nurturing of character that societyreformulates itself in relation to the earth.The ethical evaluation of these new forms ofknowledge is crucial to the creative and caringregeneration of the human environment, asopposed to the corrosive adoption ofconsumerism and usury.

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in Colin Butler & Kerryn Higgs (ed.s) Climate Change and Global Health, Third edition, CABI, 2024

Health practitioners have important roles to reduce the impact of climate change, and also to adv... more Health practitioners have important roles to reduce the impact of climate change, and also to advocate for a more "sustainable" and equitable civilisation. However, to be effective, education aimed at medical and public health students concerning these issues needs to improve its engagement with fundamental political and economic questions. This chapter describes some of the devastating consequences of the 2023 flooding event, in New Zealand's North Island, to illustrate some of the key principles that are needed to deliver effective global health education, including resilience and social cohesion, each of which is placed at risk by the now dominant paradigm of neoliberalism, which fosters denialism, doomerism and "prepping". Instead, doctors and other health workers need encouragement, direction, and encounters with role models who can challenge power and work for the public good.

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Encyclopaedia of Educational Innovation, 2022

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Climate Change and Philosophy; Transformational Possibilities, 2010

Awareness of climate change is mounting in seriousness, but what is less well explored is how cli... more Awareness of climate change is mounting in seriousness, but what is less well explored is how climate change is provoking a profound critique on some of our philosophical traditions. The planet could shift into an epoch with conditions far too harsh for human habitation. In due course this is bound to happen, as a result of changes in our orbit, the polarity of the magnetic poles, the position of land mass in relation to the poles, and the lifetime of the sun. However, the rapid change in climate that is occurring at present has little or nothing to do with these larger cosmic forces. It is almost entirely due to feedbacks introduced by the inadvertent pollution from modern consumer industrialisation. How did we get to this impasse? The question is technological, cultural, and philosophical. It probes at the essence of modernity and at specific fault lines in the tradition of philosophy. Drawing from the history of philosophical ideas and the very modern concerns with climate change, this paper examines Heidegger's concern with the threshold of nihilism as a regenerative force in conceptualisation and our relationship with beings. Heidegger has a strong critique of modernity which takes up the finitude posed by nuclear devastation. More recently, and with even fuller dimensions, the looming boundary of climate change point to the nihilism inherent in modern thought. Somewhat surprisingly, Heidegger's approach to the zone that threatens to draw modern culture to an untimely close, is not entirely pessimistic. He regards the 'line' or boundary of the planetary conditions for human life as generating a new 'beginning.' That beginning (or the contemplation of the ending) generates the conditions for rethinking what it is to be meaningful human beings. So, it exemplifies the openness required to fully care and integrate the relationship between our planet and ourselves.

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Postfoundationalist themes in the philosophy of education : festschrift for james d marshall, 2013

In this paper the authors take up James Marshall's work on the individual and autonomy. Their sug... more In this paper the authors take up James Marshall's work on the individual and autonomy. Their suggestion is that although the liberal notion of the autonomous individual might give us a standard of reference for the freedom of persons, the liberal tradition also circumscribes that freedom by prescribing it both as an attribute of persons and as a necessity for persons to exercise, in the form of choice, even though the range of choice is in fact limited. Starting from an account of James Marshall and Colin Lankshear's respective work on the nature of the individual, and using Heidegger, Nietzsche, Merleau-Ponty and others, they reintegrate the individual into society as it were, and finally, search for means of escape from the determinism of ‘governmentality’. Drawing on notions such as ‘technologies of the self’, hysteria and excess, integration of body and mind, individual and environment, subject and object, they describe the difficult, hesitant work of bringing existing parameters of thought and behaviour into consciousness. Some consequences for the relations of teachers and students within the school context are suggested.

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Beyond Empiricism: On Criteria for Educational Research, 2003

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Review of David Storey, Naturalizing Heidegger: His Confrontation with Nietzsche, His Contributions to Environmental Philosophy, Albany: State University of New York Press, in Environmental Philosophy (2015, 2015

David Storey has written a scholarly text called Naturalizing Heidegger; His Confrontation with N... more David Storey has written a scholarly text called Naturalizing Heidegger; His Confrontation with Nietzsche, His Contributions to Environmental Philosophy. Storey’s book is a thorough, methodical analysis of Heidegger’s interaction with Nietzsche. He makes the salient point that the ‘turn’ between early and later Heidegger is often overstated, and that Nietzsche had a profound impact on Heidegger’s thought from Being and Time (1927) all through until his last works. Storey has done a great job of reviewing the secondary literature, especially in the Anglo speaking world. For Heidegger the essence of earth is nothing ecological. (In the same way that the essence of technology is nothing technological) But Storey seems deeply uncomfortable with this attitude, despite a meticulous understanding of how Heidegger seeks a genuine encounter with beings through artwork. This is what makes it an interesting book – it is a clash of two knowledge systems, and not simply a description of Heidegger’s oeuvre.

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Heidegger noticed that modern technology has alienated people from ecological sensitivity, and co... more Heidegger noticed that modern technology has alienated people from ecological sensitivity, and consumerism shapes the mode of understanding of all things in the modern world. Ultimately, this has produced a new era of climate change, plastic rubbish, and unprecedented levels of extinctions, now called the Anthropocene. Exosomatic memory has gone through various stages, from the stone age, through writing, and now to the use of information technologies. Exosomatic memory is where things in the surrounding milieu trigger understanding of the way the world works. Heidegger argues that people are 'thrown' into an 'always already' existent 'world' of meaning. Technology shapes our phenomenological experience. Heidegger and then Leroi-Gourhan argue technology creates a screen through which we understand everything in our surroundings. Stiegler takes note of Leroi-Gourhan to explore an evolution of exosomatic memory and Heidegger to consider how technology shapes epistemology and phenomenology; from the early cave paintings of the Palaeolithic to the smart device of contemporary late modernity. Philosophy of language helps to understand these stages in exosomatic memory. Accelerating technologies increase entropy and accelerates the Anthropocene. Stiegler, Leroi-Gourhan, and Heidegger all remain trapped in the modern enframing of thought but Indigenous exosomatic memory helps to strike through the Gordian knot and reinscribe the concept of technology from artificial artefact to encompass ecology as agents that are integrated with humanity in a web of kin relations. Ecological technē breaks the impasse of 'progress' in the Anthropocene, shifting the ethos of culture from a reified hierarchy that prioritised a particularly modern humanity, and shifts the orientation from alienation back to an ecologically integrated basis for action and change.

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