Gary Slater – författare

This study develops resources in the work of Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914) for the purposes of contemporary philosophy. It contextualizes Peirce's prevailing influences and provides greater context in relation to the currents of nineteenth-century thought. Dr Gary Slater articulates 'a nested continua model' for theological interpretation, which is indebted to Peirce's creation of 'Existential Graphs', a system of diagrams designed to provide visual representation of the process of human reasoning. He investigates how the model can be applied by looking at recent debates in historiography. He deals respectively with Peter Ochs and Robert C. Neville as contemporary manifestations of Peircean philosophical theology. This work concludes with an assessment of the model's theological implications.

Ethics Across Borders assembles perspectives from geographers, historians, theologians, philosophers, and scientists to explore ethically relevant connections across multiple types of borders.The contemporary global order is fluid, increasingly unstable, and riven with borders at countless and complex points. Religious, political, and ecological borders hold particular significance, where interactions carry compounding social and environmental consequences. As the first collected volume to look at these three types of borders, both from an interdisciplinary perspective and as distinct forms, it demonstrates the value of thinking across borders as an ethical project. Taking Simone Weil’s perspective that every separation is a link, it posits that separations within sovereignty, species, and religion become links between political, ecological, and theological perspectives, and that boundaries within human life have taken on ecological significance in the age of the Anthropocene. In this framing, religion interacts with the political and the ecological in three ways: as foundational to sovereignty, as an influence on perspectives on contemporary boundaries, and as morally and philosophically implicated in the human/nonhuman interactions that ground environmental ethics.Ethics Across Borders offers lessons on how to reimagine borders and how to engage more justly with ecological systems and human communities. It will appeal to readers in environmental and religious ethics, philosophy, and border studies.

Ethics Across Borders assembles perspectives from geographers, historians, theologians, philosophers, and scientists to explore ethically relevant connections across multiple types of borders.The contemporary global order is fluid, increasingly unstable, and riven with borders at countless and complex points. Religious, political, and ecological borders hold particular significance, where interactions carry compounding social and environmental consequences. As the first collected volume to look at these three types of borders, both from an interdisciplinary perspective and as distinct forms, it demonstrates the value of thinking across borders as an ethical project. Taking Simone Weil’s perspective that every separation is a link, it posits that separations within sovereignty, species, and religion become links between political, ecological, and theological perspectives, and that boundaries within human life have taken on ecological significance in the age of the Anthropocene. In this framing, religion interacts with the political and the ecological in three ways: as foundational to sovereignty, as an influence on perspectives on contemporary boundaries, and as morally and philosophically implicated in the human/nonhuman interactions that ground environmental ethics.Ethics Across Borders offers lessons on how to reimagine borders and how to engage more justly with ecological systems and human communities. It will appeal to readers in environmental and religious ethics, philosophy, and border studies.

Proposes a distinctly American approach to aesthetic judgment and practice.Although there are distinctly American artists-Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Grandma Moses, Thomas Hart Benton, and Andy Warhol, for example-very little attention has been devoted to formulating any distinctively American characteristics of aesthetic judgment and practice. This volume takes a step in this direction, presenting an introductory essay on the possibility of such a distinctly American tradition, and a collection of essays exploring particular examples from a variety of angles. Some of the essays in this collection extend pragmatist and process insights about the important place aesthetics has in molding and assessing experience. Other essays examine the place of American aesthetics in relation to such particular forms of art as painting, literature, music, and film. Three essays attend to the aesthetic aspects of a flourishing life. In each of the essays, American aesthetics is understood to arise out of deeply felt personal, historical, and cultural backgrounds. Consequently, not only are such relatively abstract notions as harmony, fit, elegance, proportion, and the like involved in aesthetic judgment, but also religious, political, and social factors become embroiled in aesthetic discernment. Thus the ongoing pattern of American aesthetics is shown to be distinguishable from such other varieties of aesthetic thought as analytic aesthetics, New Criticism, and postmodern approaches to aesthetics.

Proposes a distinctly American approach to aesthetic judgment and practice.Although there are distinctly American artists-Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Grandma Moses, Thomas Hart Benton, and Andy Warhol, for example-very little attention has been devoted to formulating any distinctively American characteristics of aesthetic judgment and practice. This volume takes a step in this direction, presenting an introductory essay on the possibility of such a distinctly American tradition, and a collection of essays exploring particular examples from a variety of angles. Some of the essays in this collection extend pragmatist and process insights about the important place aesthetics has in molding and assessing experience. Other essays examine the place of American aesthetics in relation to such particular forms of art as painting, literature, music, and film. Three essays attend to the aesthetic aspects of a flourishing life. In each of the essays, American aesthetics is understood to arise out of deeply felt personal, historical, and cultural backgrounds. Consequently, not only are such relatively abstract notions as harmony, fit, elegance, proportion, and the like involved in aesthetic judgment, but also religious, political, and social factors become embroiled in aesthetic discernment. Thus the ongoing pattern of American aesthetics is shown to be distinguishable from such other varieties of aesthetic thought as analytic aesthetics, New Criticism, and postmodern approaches to aesthetics.

Baruch Spinoza’s Ethics is a dense masterpiece of sustained argumentative reasoning. It earned its place as one of the most important and influential books in Western philosophy by virtue of its uncompromisingly direct arguments about the nature of God, the universe, free will, and human morals.Though it remains one of the densest and most challenging texts in the entire canon of Western philosophy, Ethics is also famous for Spinoza’s unique approach to ordering and constructing its arguments. As its full title – Ethics, Demonstrated in Geometrical Order – suggests, Spinoza decided to use the rigorous format of mathematical-style propositions to lay out his arguments, just as the Ancient Greek mathematician Euclid had used geometrical propositions to lay out the basic rules of geometry.In choosing such a systematic method, Spinoza’s masterwork shows the crucial aspects of good reasoning skills being employed at the highest level. The key use of reasoning is the production of an argument that is well-organised, supports its conclusions and proceeds logically towards its end. Just as a mathematician might demonstrate a geometrical proof, Spinoza sought to lay out a comprehensive philosophy for human existence – an attempt that has influenced generations of philosophers since.

Baruch Spinoza’s Ethics is a dense masterpiece of sustained argumentative reasoning. It earned its place as one of the most important and influential books in Western philosophy by virtue of its uncompromisingly direct arguments about the nature of God, the universe, free will, and human morals.Though it remains one of the densest and most challenging texts in the entire canon of Western philosophy, Ethics is also famous for Spinoza’s unique approach to ordering and constructing its arguments. As its full title – Ethics, Demonstrated in Geometrical Order – suggests, Spinoza decided to use the rigorous format of mathematical-style propositions to lay out his arguments, just as the Ancient Greek mathematician Euclid had used geometrical propositions to lay out the basic rules of geometry.In choosing such a systematic method, Spinoza’s masterwork shows the crucial aspects of good reasoning skills being employed at the highest level. The key use of reasoning is the production of an argument that is well-organised, supports its conclusions and proceeds logically towards its end. Just as a mathematician might demonstrate a geometrical proof, Spinoza sought to lay out a comprehensive philosophy for human existence – an attempt that has influenced generations of philosophers since.