Books
Why Context Matters: Or, Where Did Anglo-American Philosophy Go Wrong?
£14.95
Why were so many luminaries of European philosophy — such as Bergson, Heidegger, Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, and Sartre, even Marx and Freud — kept out of the philosophy curriculum of Anglo-American universities for most of the 20th century? Why were the schools of philosophy they founded derided as continental philosophy and deemed more suitable for the departments of literature and psychology than philosophy? This book argues that the institutionally sanctioned contrast between allegedly legitimate philosophy and its spurious continental counterpart became entrenched thanks to two intertwined metaphysical presuppositions at the heart of positivism. The first is the principle that higher-level complex systems are epiphenomenal. The second is that all causes are mechanical.
In contrast to their continental European counterparts, Anglo-American metaphysicians and philosophers of science repeatedly resisted the idea that higher level phenomena might be, ontologically-speaking, relational. This book proposes that, had the alternative path that emphasizes context-dependence been selected, a scientifically respectable relational ontology might have come to inform Anglo-American metaphysics and epistemology as well as the actual practice of science — without falling prey to non-natural deus ex machina proposals.
Four female British philosophers at Oxford during WWII attempted to do exactly that. Anscombe, Foot, Midgley, and Murdoch raised serious objections to Oxbridge’s Newton-inspired Positivism as early as the 1940s. The four good friends advocated for a context-dependent worldview. This book situates the four women philosophers’ valiant challenge to the entrenched paradigm as a case study of exactly why and how context matters.
Click this link for a discussion/interview with the author on The Complexity Lounge
Also, see this podcast interview with the author.
Paperback
165 pp.
£14.95
Why were so many luminaries of European philosophy — such as Bergson, Heidegger, Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, and Sartre, even Marx and Freud — kept out of the philosophy curriculum of Anglo-American universities for most of the 20th century? Why were the schools of philosophy they founded derided as continental philosophy and deemed more suitable for the departments of literature and psychology than philosophy? This book argues that the institutionally sanctioned contrast between allegedly legitimate philosophy and its spurious continental counterpart became entrenched thanks to two intertwined metaphysical presuppositions at the heart of positivism. The first is the principle that higher-level complex systems are epiphenomenal. The second is that all causes are mechanical.
In contrast to their continental European counterparts, Anglo-American metaphysicians and philosophers of science repeatedly resisted the idea that higher level phenomena might be, ontologically-speaking, relational. This book proposes that, had the alternative path that emphasizes context-dependence been selected, a scientifically respectable relational ontology might have come to inform Anglo-American metaphysics and epistemology as well as the actual practice of science — without falling prey to non-natural deus ex machina proposals.
Four female British philosophers at Oxford during WWII attempted to do exactly that. Anscombe, Foot, Midgley, and Murdoch raised serious objections to Oxbridge’s Newton-inspired positivism as early as the 1940s. The four good friends advocated for a context-dependent worldview. This book situates the four women philosophers’ valiant challenge to the entrenched paradigm as a case study of exactly why and how context matters.
Don Ross, co-author of Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized –
“Alicia Juarrero was among the first philosophers to stress the importance of dynamics and scale sensitivity in the philosophy of action and mind. In this new book she widens her focus to the severe limitations imposed by philosophical atomism on metaphysics, philosophy of science, and (especially) value theory. She then puts the spotlight on four mid-century women – Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Iris Murdoch, and Mary Midgley – who struggled to escape these limitations. Analysis of ideas is elegantly blended with biography, in keeping with Juarrero’s emphasis on the pervasive relevance of context, in showing how the foursome fell short of breaking fully clear of atomism’s grip, but shone light forward into our current century of philosophy of complexity.”