The gift of kinds : the good in abundance : an ethic of the Earth / Stephen David Ross.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ross, Stephen David.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ethics.

Philosophy of nature.

Categories (Philosophy)--Moral and ethical aspects.

Categories (Philosophy).

Physical Description:

xvii, 323 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Albany : State University of New York Press, [1999]

Summary:

In this fourth volume of Stephen David Ross's ongoing project reexamining Western philosophical tradition, The Gift of Kinds explores the order of things, linking the kinds of the natural world to disciplinary distinctions and to social divisions by gender, race, class, and nationality. It pursues a local and contingent ethics that pervades human-life and the earth that responds to the expressiveness of things everywhere, resisting the tyranny of kinds, human and otherwise.

The book examines the idea of natural and human kinds as requisite to any thought of heterogeneity and any resistance to neutrality, developed in relation to ecological and environmental issues. The giving of the good is understood in terms of species and kinds, linked with genealogy: family, gender, race, kin, and kind. Levinas's sense of exposure -- expression and proximity -- is interpreted as propinquity. Kinds are interpreted as intermediary figures between histories of domination and celebrations of responsibility, between essentialism and identity politics.

Contents:

General Preface to the Project: Gifts of the Good xiii

The fourth of several volumes devoted to the good

Human, natural worlds filled with gifts

Nature the general economy of the good, earth's abundance

Resisting authority and totality

Plato's idea of the good beyond measure

Unlimiting every limit, interrupting authority

Gifts and giving

Exposure interruption, calling for responsiveness, responsibility

Cherishment exposure to the good everywhere in generosity

Sacrifice impossibility of fulfillment

Plenishment crossing cherishment and sacrifice

Inexhaustible exposure to the good

Socrates' suggestion that the good grants authority to knowledge and truth

Anaximander and injustice in all things, demanding restitution

The good as ideality

Volumes projected in this project

Began with art in response to Nietzsche's interruption of authority in name of art

Continue within possibility that Western philosophic tradition has always given precedence to truth and being, neutralizing the good

This volume addresses kinds of the earth as ecstatic revelations of life and being, resistant to neutrality

Introduction: The Abundance of Kinds 1

Spinoza and abundance of kinds

God and nature expressed in infinite numbers of infinite kinds

Nature composed of infinite individuals, each expressed through infinite kinds

Conatus, desire

Love of God, Dei amor, beatitudo, blessedness

Kind

Tyranny of kinds: using other kinds in any way whatever

Interruption: essentialism and identity politics

Tyrannies of singularities and kinds

Heterogeneous differences among singulars and kinds

Good and evil

Profit and advantage

Two ethical discourses

God and nature

Natura naturans, natura naturata; potentia, potestas

Infinity of kinds

Levinas

Infinity of infinite

Singularity

Wittig

Exaltation and universality

Mimesis

The Lesbian Body

All human works and things given from the good, without neutrality

Cherishment, sacrifice, plenishment

Sacrificing sacrifice

In expression, the abundance of species and kinds

Chapter 1 Woman's Kinds 13

Griffin

Woman and Nature

Pronouns, she, we

Gendered language

J/e

Universal

Irigaray

Overthrow syntax

Ecological feminism

European history, burning women as witches

Gazelles, does, elephants, whales

Interruption

Bataille

Nature transfigured by the curse

Victims

Abjection

In kinds

We who are of the earth

Foucault, violence against violence

Horses, cows, mules

Nature speaking of nature to nature, nature naturing

We and nature weep

Stones

Chapter 2 Ranking Kinds 27

Plato

Sophist

Kind, eidos, of many-sided sophist

Kin, family, propinquity, lineage, and blood

Eleatic stranger

Socrates a stranger

Genealogy, genos, eidos

Hunting the sophist kind

Philosophy hunting

To possess

Chershment

Sacrifice

Plenishment

Foucault, descent, Herkunft

Kinds

genos, phulon, eidos

Techne

Philebus

Indefinite dyad

Possessing truth

Philosopher many-sided, many kinds

Method of genealogy, hunting

Binary division

Nature's kinds divided in two

God Himself; Day of Judgment

Definite dyad

Fish and mollusks

Resisting the neutrality of gathering

Molly

Hunting, possessing, coercing, selling

Purification, katharmos

Purity and impurity of kinds

Heidegger reading Aristotle

Phusis as morphe

Aristotle

Slaves, animals, and women

General and restricted economy

Mimesis and logos, linked by eide, kinds

Chapter 3 Nature's Kinds 49

Leibniz

Monads, singularities and kinds

Anaxagoras

Always larger and smaller

Impurity and heterogeneity

Infinity

Monads

Entelechies

Identity of indiscernibles

Uncontainable multiplicity and variety

World of abundance

Mirrors, representations, without windows

Each bit of matter a garden full of plants, a pond full of fishes

From the good

Rule of God

Sufficient reason

Perfection

Fulgurations of divinity

Nature's mimesis

Hegel

Kind much more than what is common

Consciousness of universal

Nietzsche

No one gives man his qualities

Man the animal

Tyranny of Man the God

Uncontainable refused to animals

In Hegel

Quine and Goodman on natural kinds

Rule of science

Possible worlds

Always more

Linked with kin and kind

Heterogeneous infinite in nature

Geography

Wandering

Chapter 4 Ordering Kinds 65

Foucault

Order of Things

Idea of order

Borges's Chinese encyclopedia

Impossible to think

Language

Genealogy

Prose of the world

Univocity of being

Convenientia, aemulatio, analogy, sympathy

Signatures

Plethora and poverty

Mathesis, taxonomy, genesis

Classical representation

Language, nature, wealth

Inclusion, exclusion, monstrosity

Wilson

Natural selection

Biodiversity, wilderness

Wealth, money, circulation

Value sacrifice of goods to exchange

Under the curse

Chapter 5 Becoming Kinds 79

Deleuze and Guattari

Becoming a kind

Man a rope, a bridge

Spinoza

Heraclitus

Becoming neither being nor flux

Excessiveness of excess

Participation (methexis) becoming in kind

Difference and repetition

Becoming-animal

Molecular, molar

Becoming-woman

Only certain animals and women

Becoming for men

Privilege

Minority, minoritarian

Impure kinds

Fluidity, domination

Minority experiences

Territorialization, deterritorialization

Becoming-Jew

Music

Genealogy, geology, geography, geophilosophy

Geology of morals

Geography of morels

Lyotard

Borders, propriety, abjection, geography

Geophilosophy

Mimesis, expression

Against the neuter

Angels

In geophilosophy

Machines

Derrida

Mimesis not only human

Nonanthropocentrism

Chapter 6 Blood Kinds 97

Blood, lineage, genealogy

Genre, Geschlecht, Herkunft

Genus, kin, propinquity, kind; gender, reproduction, sexual difference

Women

Blood and reproduction

Sexual difference

men and women, family, reproduction; sexual indifference

objectivity, detachment, neutrality

Social contract, women and animals, sacrifice and consumption

Body vessel of death, in blood

Blood of our mother

Spilling and devouring blood

Geschlecht

Dasein's sexuality

Heidegger's neutralization

Ursprung, Entstehung, Herkunft, Abkunft, Geburt

Birth, origin, descent

Emergence, parousia

Family, stock, nation, kin, kind, propinquity, bonded by blood

Impurity of purity

Attached to bodies

Genre, genre humain

Nature, neutrality, touch

Mark of gender in nature through language

Butler

Coding, citation, iterability, materiality

Gender in language

Man's hand, paws, fangs, claws

Dasein's friend never animal

Question of Heidegger

Rigor

Iterability, singularity and repetition

Immeasurability of responsibility and sacrifice

Chapter 7 Consuming Kinds 113

Eating well

Stockpiling

Impeding circulation of goods

Consumption, stockpiling, storing, owning, devouring the good

Responsibility excessive

Affirmation

Differance, trace, iterability, ex-appropriation, not only human, well beyond humanity

Responsibility

Expression, mimesis, representation

Interruptions

Consumption

Blood

Adams

Absent referents

Violence against women and animals

Humanism does not sacrifice sacrifice

Bodily

inscriptions

Lateral effects

Sovereignty nothing

Extravagance and consumption without use

Humanity under the curse

Humans, animals, death, abjection

Gifts

Eating the good

State power, meat, and vegetarianism

Male dominance, virility, and meat

Political power

How to sacrifice sacrifice

Mimesis without domination

Chapter 8 Stockpiling Kinds 125

I am because we are

Sacrificing sacrifice

Animals, women, slaves

Stored, seized, classified as kinds

Heidegger

Standing-reserve

Domestication and mastery

Anything whatever can be used for human advantage

Slaves, women, animals subordinate by nature

Du Bois

Celebration of races

Mingling and impurity of kinds

Value presupposes abundance

Chains and whips of slavery, animal domestication

Value

Between general and restricted economy

Racism, sexism, classism, speciesism as possession, consumption, in blood

Guidelines resistant to stockpiling kinds

Abundance, restriction, possession, mastery

Celebrating race

Invisibleness

Senghor

Negritude

Black feminism

Identity politics

Tyranny of kinds

Community fascism

Kindism

Appiah

Racialism, extrinsic racism, intrinsic racism

Outlaw

Critical theory and race

Delacampagne

Racism and Western rationality

Gates

Poststructuralist denial of subjectivity

Anti-universalist universalism

Balibar

Racism, kindism, universality, and humanism

Humanity menaced by animality

Jacoby

Slavery and domestication of animals

Spiegel

Comparing suffering of animals and suffering of slaves

Chapter 9 Strange Kinds 141

Kristeva

Strangers to ourselves

Foreigners and cosmopolitanism

So-called primitive societies

Threshold rituals

Liminaries

Simmel

Outsiders near and far, in danger

Reality composed of differends

Genres

Nature and reality

Expression, mimesis

Jowett

Responsibility in proximity

Politics threat of differend

No genre

Takes place as genre

Power and resistance

Nationality without nationalism

Strangeness in proximity

Subjection and abjection

Being-in-proximity

Exposition

exposure and expression

Nationality

Democracy without territory

Policing strangeness

United States's naturalization law

Racism and strangers

Dialectic of master and slave

The curse

African strangers

Exogamy

Women always strangers

Jussawalla

Missing Person

Bhabha

Fanon

Hindi alphabet and silence

Repetitious desire to recognize ourselves doubly

Politics and mimesis

The good as abundance

Chapter 10 Ecological Kinds 159

Naess

Shallow and deep ecology

Without mimesis

Without sacrificing sacrifice

Odd term

Two pervasive contingencies in ethicallpolitical practice

Insecurity of every ethical judgment

Good is bad

Ethics requires sacrifice and its sacrifice

Power and resistance dispersed and incalculable

Shallow ecology may be more effective than deep

Deep ecological platform

Expressing impurity

Qualifications and reservations

Ecosophy

Philosophy in exposure and proximity

In mimesis

Rejection of total view

Oikos

Dominations of women, slaves, and children in the home

Propinquity

Responsibility as change

Ecosophy as excessive responsibility

Rights, human and natural

Economics

Without authority

Ecosophy as mimesis, sacrificing sacrifice

Deep ecological platform without police

Too late to escape human presence everywhere

Politics

Resistance to neutrality

Gandhian rules of nonviolence

Guidelines to plenishment in the earth

Total view

Endless questions of responsibility

Universal right to live and blossom

Rights

Over others

Right to sacrifice

Inclusive ethics of abundance

Friluftsliv

Exuberance in nature

Touching the earth lightly

Guidelines for exuberance

Chapter 11 Weaving Kinds 175

Goddesses

Weaving and ethical ecology

Women and nature

Technology

Domination

Natural kinds

Impurity

Women's lived experience

Kheel

MacKinnon

Shiva

Feminine principle

Linking multiplicity, profusion, liminality, impurity

King

Activities of women absolutely social

Social and natural inseparable

Dirty little secret

Radical cultural feminists

Radical rationalist feminists

Essentialism

Overcoming dualisms, oppositions

Abundance of the earth

Heterogeneity impurity, differends

Spiritual renewal

Total earth view

Chapter 12 Modern Kinds 187

Ferry

Modern world rests on separation of humanity from nature

Animals instinctive, leave no legacy

All valorization human

Modernity formed under curse

All rights belong to subject

Nature has no rights

Freedom absolute condition of ethics and law

Of democracy

Resistance to absolute distinction between human beings and animals, humanity and nature

Freedom as responsibility without authority, always qualified

Critique of universality

Ethical superiority of humanity

Ethics for human beings

Humanism sacrifices nature to humanity

Serres

Natural contract

Jonas

Link of radical ecology with National Socialism

Kant

Man the final purpose of nature

Inequality

Public torture of animals

Politeness and civility toward animals, not ethics

Conflict between democracy and environmentalism

Democracy and responsibility toward all

Postmodern radical ecology

Nature's expressiveness, mimesis

Critique of humanism and anthropocentrism

Animistic cultures

Expressiveness of nature

Ecological humility

Gaia hypothesis

New sense of democracy and polity, including natural world

Wilderness spaces

Otherness as wildness

Beyond anthropocentrism

Chapter 13 Abundant Kinds 203

Abundance and heterogeneity of kinds

Repetitions of mimesis and desire

Ackerman

Heterogeneities

Culture, capitalism, world system

Ecological reflections from other cultures

China

One body with universe

As mimesis

Tao-te

Jewel net of Indra

Hua-yen Buddhism

Ontological parity

Nirvana

Continuity of reality

Loving-kindness

Compassion

Blake

World in grain of sand

Bodhi tree

Interdependence throughout nature

Endless mimesis

Experiential reality

Emptiness as abundance

Chapter 14 Earthly Kinds 215

Responsibility a call from nowhere

Abundance in the earth

Heterogeneity

Giving

Exposure

Expression and proximity

Resisting neutrality

Ethic of inclusion

Resisting humanism, mechanism, universalism

Program built on platform of deep ecology

Responsibility interruption in proximity

Resist neutrality!

Sacrifice sacrifice!

Resist injustice in the abundance of the earth

Greater responsiveness and self-criticism

Exposure among different human beings and kinds

In propinquity

Promote female literacy

Beware the purity of the better

Resist every border

Undertake responsibility within exposure and proximity

Normative model without normativity, with exclamation marks!

Local determination!

Abundance, heterogeneity, kinds, responsibility, cherishment, sacrifice, plenishment, intermediary movements, liminality, impurity, exuberance, interruption!

Immeasurable ecology, ethics itself

Concluding examples

No one knows good for another

Struggle between global centralization and local determination

World condition

Democracy as heterogeneity

Capitalist economy as locally competitive economies

Democratic institutions institute homogeneity, capitalist economies widen disparities

Democracy discounts every authority in name of heterogeneity

Animal experimentation

Human experimentation

Become vegetarians?

Of course

But ...

Animal experimentation?

But ... Ethics of perhaps and but

Feeding one's cats, other cats

Plenishment as love

Kindness

Endless crossings.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 267-301) and index.

ISBN:

0791442535

0791442543

OCLC:

40714916