Thinking Otherwise: Speculative Imagining in PfC

<p>In the face of looming ecological catastrophe, ever-expanding neoliberalism and the ongoing integration of our lives into virtual spaces, there is an urgent need to expand people’s political imagination and responsiveness to these challenges. Engaging with philosophy outside the academic sphere – for example, in school and community contexts – can contribute to addressing this political need. Using the example of Philosophy for Children (PfC), an international educational movement, this thesis explores the potential for cross-paradigmatic approaches to philosophical inquiry. It observes that adherence to particular philosophical paradigms, as has largely been the case in PfC, binds the imagination to particular epistemic and political parameters and precludes ideas that contradict paradigmatic assumptions. Invoking the sensibility of Gillian Rose, I argue that we need a philosophy that permits people to imagine radically different political worlds in a manner that actively resists political ‘bubble-think’. This thesis illustrates how Rose’s cross-paradigmatic approach, speculative negotiation, can help to address some of the limits of paradigm thinking by inspiring a more transformative philosophy in contexts such as PfC. In doing so, this thesis contributes both to an expansion of the PfC programme and to questions surrounding the concrete practise of Rose’s rich theoretical oeuvre.</p>

Thinking Otherwise: Speculative Imagining in PfC

<p>In the face of looming ecological catastrophe, ever-expanding neoliberalism and the ongoing integration of our lives into virtual spaces, there is an urgent need to expand people’s political imagination and responsiveness to these challenges. Engaging with philosophy outside the academic sphere – for example, in school and community contexts – can contribute to addressing this political need. Using the example of Philosophy for Children (PfC), an international educational movement, this thesis explores the potential for cross-paradigmatic approaches to philosophical inquiry. It observes that adherence to particular philosophical paradigms, as has largely been the case in PfC, binds the imagination to particular epistemic and political parameters and precludes ideas that contradict paradigmatic assumptions. Invoking the sensibility of Gillian Rose, I argue that we need a philosophy that permits people to imagine radically different political worlds in a manner that actively resists political ‘bubble-think’. This thesis illustrates how Rose’s cross-paradigmatic approach, speculative negotiation, can help to address some of the limits of paradigm thinking by inspiring a more transformative philosophy in contexts such as PfC. In doing so, this thesis contributes both to an expansion of the PfC programme and to questions surrounding the concrete practise of Rose’s rich theoretical oeuvre.</p>

Ecological and agrochemical assessment of the state of technogenically disturbed soil cover of the steppe zone of the Volga region

The anthropogenic impact on the biosphere every year leads to the depletion of all natural resources, including soil, which leads humanity to an ecological catastrophe. We have carried out work on the assessment of recultivation of the soil disturbed during the technical re-equipment works. It was revealed that in the soil areas located in the corridor of the passage of communications, due to the constant work on the repair, dismantling and construction of the routes of the corridor of their passage, the natural soil cover is not preserved, and in some places completely disappears, as well as there is mixing of soil layers and destruction of the natural soil cover. Keywords: URBANIZATION, TECHNOGENICALLY DISTURBED SOILS, MEADOW-CHERNOZEM SOILS, SOIL FERTILITY

Searching for a metaphor of the Anthropocene. Reinterpretation of the Oedipus myth

Anthropocene – the epoch of man, a slogan that evokes awareness of the impending ecological catastrophe. Man’s attitude to nature has nowadays become a major problem and its solution or not will determine the further existence of the human species. As humanity, we believe to possess inexhaustible scientific and technical might and potential to run the Earth. Yet today an urgent need has arisen to reverse our present activities designed primarily to boost frenetic economic growth. Prompt action is needed to protect the Earth’s climate. Our mentality needs to be changed. However, the looming ecological threat has not yet evoked large enough concern among men, otherwise so highly expert in many fields nor overcome our inertness and denialism. Hence the need for a metaphor that would inspire change of knowledge and values to help counteract the climate crisis more efficiently. I believe that the story and myth of Oedipus as told by Sophocles is a sufficiently well-known and a motivating one and applicable to the Anthropocene. Reinterpreting the myth, I refer to Paul Ricoeur’s expressed need to grasp and understand the essence of the tragic. I follow C. Levi-Strauss’s thinking in his exploration of mankind’s universal principles of thinking and experience in the myth. I share Michel Foucalt's contention regarding the excess of Oedipus’s power and knowledge. I reverse the attention from events in Thebes to these in Kolonos. The path of Oedipus’ life illustrates the transformation he had undergone having gained new knowledge needed to regain power and to overcome the sense of being a victim of his own actions. I also suggest that the taboo of patricide and incest be not perceived as a proscription but as an advice and also a way of degrading and transforming the “Ego” into “Eco”, that is egocentrism into ecocentrism. In Kolonos, the spiritual strength and the extra knowledge gained by Oedipus ensured protection and security to Athenians. The proposed metaphor of the “Anthropocene” could help to revivify the “sense of tragedy” leading consequently to metanoia, a change of people’s minds, new strength and inspiration to act.

Racial geographies of the Anthropocene: Memory and erasure in Rio de Janeiro

This paper interrogates the extent to which imaginaries of climate and ecological breakdown attend to the memories, knowledges, and experiences of communities already impacted by histories of racism, colonialism, and poverty. Drawing on insights from Black studies and decolonial thinking, the article reflects on how the causes and effects of anthropogenic climate change can be mapped onto geographies of racialised violence and social dispossession. Specific emphasis is given to Rio de Janeiro, notably its port area, a geographical space where future-oriented narratives remain oblivious to the city’s history of anti-Black violence and Indigenous genocide. In parallel, the paper looks at the recently built Museum of Tomorrow and its public representations of the Anthropocene. Overall, the article contends that pluralising accounts of the Anthropocene might offer alternative epistemic entry points for understanding and interrupting the mounting ecological catastrophe.

Society of life-creating noosphere labour – the strategy for the development of Russia and humanity

The article reveals the prerequisites and grounds for the transition in its development in the XXI century of Russia and humanity to a society of creative noospheric labor. The formation of such a society is the only strategy for humanity's exit from the already existing impasse in history in the form of developing processes of the first phase of the Global Ecological Catastrophe and a breakthrough to the noospheric paradigm of future history. The article considers different approaches to the system of values of modern society. The key concepts are a consumer society, labour economic models of colonization, and the dictatorship of developing countries. The main provisions of the study are the recognition of the need for human creativity and labor as part of the noosphere and the necessity of the transition from a digital society, which threatens an impending ecological catastrophe, to the scientific and educational, creative association of people. However, humanity still identifies itself through market-capitalist relations, which divert it from nature and itself

ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE IN KAMCHATKA

The article deals with the ecological catastrophe that occurred on the shores of the Pacific ocean of the Kamchatka territory. Possible consequences for the world ecology are given

Fascism at Future's End

This essay provides a critical review of Shane Burley's Fascism Today. Studies of fascism, it argues, are always necessarily an inquiry into phenomenologies of historical time and a reflection on historiographical method. Engaging with Burley's account of contemporary fascist movements, this essay aims to identify the effects of a lacuna that underwrites approaches to fascism that, following Roger Griffin's The Nature of Fascism (1991), prioritize the ideological and metapolitical over materialist engagements with political, economic, and ecological processes. Situating contemporary fascist movements within the twin forces of emerging ecological catastrophe and ongoing economic contraction, this essay argues that contemporary fascisms are best understood as racist technologies for living in a world without a future.