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Articles 1 - 7 of 7
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Ships Among Ports: Futures Of Europe, Kirk W. Junker
Ships Among Ports: Futures Of Europe, Kirk W. Junker
Kirk W Junker
The future is evitable. That is to say if, as many of the contributors to Futures over the years have claimed, there is more than one future possible, and that more than one will be experienced, then talking about ‘inevitability’ is simply wrong. And what a task it is to attempt to say anything warranted, but nevertheless fresh concerning the futures of Europe—especially in such a context as considering the plural conception of futures in the title of this publication! Immediately after the member states of the Union failed to agree the draft treaty on European Constitution at the Intergovernmental …
Making Rights From What's Left Of Darwinism, Kirk W. Junker
Making Rights From What's Left Of Darwinism, Kirk W. Junker
Kirk W Junker
The legal, political, and social meaning of the work of Charles Darwin has been claimed as resident to conservative and liberal homes alike. Peter Singer’s unique admixture of personal liberal politics and what may look to be an extremely conservative philosophy of nature
expose some over-simplicity in traditional ‘right’ and ‘left’ categories. In ‘‘Recovering
the Left from Darwin in the 21st Century’’, Steve Fuller provides us with insightful historical
and sociological contexts for Singer’s challenges. In this article, Kirk Junker takes one aspect of the trajectory ‘the notion of natural rights’ and examines their social construction, linguistic maintenance, and legal …
Dediction, Kirk W. Junker
Dediction, Kirk W. Junker
Kirk W Junker
Of course it is not a word, this “dediction”; at least, not yet. But why not? As the story goes, James Joyce was once asked whether his habit of inventing words was because there were not enough words in the English language. He answered that there were enough words, just not the right words. To see whether “dediction” might be a “right word”, I begin by considering related terms, and then consider what they do for us—why do they exist and my new term, “dediction”, does not? For example, if we construct for ourselves a simple list of Latinate roots …
Shuttling Among Futures In The Symbolic Alchemy Of The Mysterium Coniunctionis, Kirk W. Junker
Shuttling Among Futures In The Symbolic Alchemy Of The Mysterium Coniunctionis, Kirk W. Junker
Kirk W Junker
Contrary to the notion that the human mind has some sort of tendency toward the abstract processes of classifying, analysing and synthesising, this paper suggests that these processes are historically and socially constructed. Because these processes (in particular, synthesising) are brought about to serve specific purpose and agendas, we need to re-examine them periodically to see if they still serve our needs. In the past, synthesis had an important function as a symbol, among alchemists, for example. We have all but forgotten that symbolic functioning and treat in now only in its material manifestations. Having done so, we use the …
Expectation, Kirk W. Junker
Expectation, Kirk W. Junker
Kirk W Junker
Previously in Futures, I discussed a word that we use to form an abstract futures concept: “millennium” [1]. In its most common current usage, “millennium” is an example of a word that provides, and one might even say controls, a future orientation for us. In the present essay, I am taking a different approach to the role of the word that I will be discussing. This word is not an example of a future-orientation; rather it is more of an example of language about future-orientation. The word is “expectation”. To make this distinction clearer, it may help to borrow some …
Gattaca: Defacing The Future, Kirk W. Junker
Millennium, Kirk W. Junker
Millennium, Kirk W. Junker
Kirk W Junker
Elsewhere I have argued that the future is made of words and images that we create and use in the present, and that the nature of these words is such that we project our future(s)1 from them[1]. Ultimately, we then treat those projected worlds, made of our own words and images, as being something real, or at least real enough to be considered unavoidable, and thus we read back meaning on the present based upon the unavoidable future that we have created. If one accepts this schema, then it begins to make sense not only to examine this process of …