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On Sleeping through the Night, Part 1
Continuing the serialization of my recent manuscript – “On Sleeping through the Night: Ecology, Economy and Ethics of a Vital Human Project.” – with the first main section. 1. The Peculiarity of Sleep as a Project As far as we know, all – or very nearly all – animals spend some fraction of their lives… Continue reading
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Sleeper Project
Please pardon the pun – well, really, a double pun, though that may not be obvious just yet. Read on to see what I mean. How did I come to be writing a paper about, of all things, sleep? It’s the convergence of threads which have been running through my research, some of them stretching… Continue reading
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On Sleeping through the Night, Introduction
I have a new paper, currently under review, which marks my return to a primary focus on environmental philosophy. This one comes from an odd angle, and it would take a while to explain how it all happened. I may get back to that a bit later but, for now, I’ll post a serialized version… Continue reading
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Ethics for Exiles
Following from the previous post – “Word and Flesh” – a thought that has followed me at least since graduate school has made itself known once more. I don’t think I’m ready to develop the thought in full – it might require a book! – but I should at last set the thought down in… Continue reading
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Word and Flesh
In 1989, Wendell Berry delivered a commencement address at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine. With the aim of saying “something useful about the problems and opportunities that lie ahead” of the graduates, he started with a quotation from As You Like It, when Orlando says, “I can no longer live by… Continue reading
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Of Stone Tools and Sustainability
In some of my earlier blog posts I began to toy with the idea of exploring a parallel or an affinity between music and ethics. It’s not that music makes us ethical or – as Plato supposed – that certain kind of music might draw people toward virtue or toward vice. It is rather that… Continue reading
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Back Into the Field
So, yes, I’m back. The years since I last posted regularly to this blog have been turbulent, both personally and otherwise, and I found myself drawn away and distracted. Now, though, I think I can make good use of this space to sketch new ideas, to try out new distinctions and new connections, and generally… Continue reading
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Four Essential Questions on “Sustainability”
I have long chafed at the way people tend to use the word ‘sustainable’: it has become a term of general approval applied to something perceived – or something being sold – as “good for the environment” and/or good for people in some vaguely defined way. The usual “three pillars” model of sustainable development only… Continue reading
