The historical narrative of water purity tends to chart a process of secularisation with an
increasing importance on cleanliness. We suggest otherwise – that rhetorically at least, water
has never been secularised. Moral impurity and water contamination have a long and
interrelated history. Even before the connection had been made between c…[Read more]

The historical narrative of water purity tends to chart a process of secularisation with an
increasing importance on cleanliness. We suggest otherwise – that rhetorically at least, water
has never been secularised. Moral impurity and water contamination have a long and
interrelated history. Even before the connection had been made between c…[Read more]

What is philosophy? That’s a good question—not because there’s no answer, but because what’s involved in posing it points up something essential to philosophy. In the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, Spinoza sets out what’s required by a definition. A circle, a typical definition might run, is a figure in which all lines drawn fro…[Read more]

As technology enables us to communicate with one another in unpredictable ways that allow for an unprecedented public exchange of diverse ideas, cultivating the philosophical habits of an engaged fallibilistic pluralism gains in urgency. The emergence of the World Wide calls us to consider how an ethics of philosophy might enable us to cultivate…[Read more]

This is a comprehensive reassessment of Aristotle’s concept of tragic hamartia, and its different interpretations from the 1530s to the present day, in the context of Aristotle’s theory of action.

This is a review of the book on visual intelligence written by Prof. Donald D. Hoffman. This review questions the view that we create what we see. It is argued that we rather create a representation of reality. This view is peddled using a discussion around frames of reference.

The use of water as an expressive trope of spiritual hygiene was widespread among monastic writers of the twelfth century, adapted for different uses in different genres. Aqueous imagery was particularly frequent within allegories or didactic figurae exploring the care of the soul as if it were a material body, with a constitution that could be…[Read more]

This paper proposes that we can reimagine insular literatures and medieval islescapes as commodious seas of cultural and intellectual loci that span time, culture, and text alike. By moving beyond the rhetoric of insular separation or connectivity, we can see that islands connect even when medieval minds saw separation. The essay focuses on the…[Read more]

This article is a discussion of the “discourse on the unthinkable” surrounding potential future democratic engagements with rivers as non-human persons or natural objects. In the context of the Asia–Pacific region, this article suggests that the developments in material philosophy entitled “new materialism” are essential tools in the reconcept…[Read more]

Gathering into lively conversation scholars in medieval, early modern and object studies, Inhuman Nature explores the activity of the things, forces, and relations that enable, sustain and operate indifferently to us. Enamored by fictions of environmental sovereignty, we too often imagine “human” to be a solitary category of being. This col…[Read more]

This article explores the representation of hunger and thirst as faculties within medieval spiritual allegory that existed at two forms. In their bodily form, hunger and thirst represented a feeling of lack indicating the need for sustenance. In their figurative moralised form these needs came to represent a longing for that which was missing…[Read more]

In the context of the global water crisis, we seek an understanding of the histories of water management, their fashioning, and their legacy today. We juxtapose temporally diverse narratives to explore the premodern imaginings that have shaped our inheritance of hydrological thought. Rather than conceptualize their historical influence as a linear…[Read more]

Recent years have seen an infusion of new ideas into material philosophy through the work of the so-called ‘new materialists’. Poignant examples appear within two recent books: the first, Vibrant Matter by Jane Bennett (2010), sets out to “enhance receptivity to the impersonal life that surrounds and infuses us” (2010: 4). The second, Element…[Read more]

In this paper, the ethical and spiritual aspects of the trolley problem are discussed in connection with
the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. First, I show that the dropping of atomic
bombs was a typical example of the events that contained the logic of the trolley problems in their
decision-making processes and…[Read more]

Many contemporary forms of oppression are not primarily the result of formally organized collective action nor are they an unintended outcome of a combination of individual actions. This raises the question of collective responsibility. I argue that we can only determine who is responsible for oppression if we understand oppression as a matter of…[Read more]

The paper advances a new interpretation of Iamblichus’ De Vita Pythagorica and discusses its place in the history of neoplatonist biography from Porphyry’s Vita Plotini to Gregory of Nyssa’s De vita Moysis.

The paper proposes a new interpretation of Timon’s attack on Arcesilaus in fr. 806 SH.

This article pursues an antihermeneutic conception of Socratic irony that troubles the borders between pedagogical authority and humility. One of the most tenacious ways of troping the teacher-student relation, Socratic irony is often figured as a way for a masterful teacher to exercise authority over a student. Drawing on the writings of Søren…[Read more]

The essays I am posting on Humanities Commons are also on Librarything and Goodreads. These aren’t reviews. They are thoughts about the state of literary fiction, intended principally for writers and critics involved in seeing where literature might be able to go. Each one uses a book as an example of some current problem in writing.

Discussion of the relationship between historical conditions and aesthetic form in Euripidean tragedy.