Philosophy Commons^™

Why Life Now?, Ladelle Mcwhorter

Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Faculty Publications

As we struggle to understand and prepare ourselves for climate change, the effects of globalized neoliberal capitalism, and violence (both govenmental and extra-governmental) on a planetary scale, we also struggle to name what it is that we cherish and hope to foster and protect as well as what it is that, of itself opposes the forces that may well destroy us. One of the words that has emerged in this context is life.

Philosophers do well to pay close attention to any concept that attains such centrality and exercises such power in our thinking, which is one reason to be …

The Next Fifty Years, Ladelle Mcwhorter

Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Faculty Publications

Continental philosophy tends to be very textual, defined not so much by a set of problems as by a set of interpretive practices. We read Levinas or Irigaray and write interpretations of those texts. Of course, we do more than issue commentary; we think through texts, grappling with problems, concepts, and historical and cultural phenomena. Still, most of our work remains closely tied to texts. Consequently, it often reproduces a distinction between primary and secondary philosophical work that we might question. Nobody would deny the creativity of John Sallis’ or David Wood’s work or that of Debra Bergoffen or Kelly …

Practicing Practicing, Ladelle Mcwhorter

Philosophy Faculty Publications

"There is something ludicrous in philosophical discourse," Michel Foucault writes, "when it tries, from the outside, to dictate to others, to tell them where their truth is and how to find it... " (Foucault 1985, 9). In our age of moral relativism and multiculturalism, it is easy to hear in this sentence a simple condemnation of intellectuals who pose as authorities on questions of belief, and it is all too easy to agree; yes, of course, we ought not tell other people what to think. But given the issues, directions, and investments of Foucault's work, especially in The Use of …