Reconciling

For the particle physics community the notorious “Higgs boson” is the Holy Grail: This entirely theoretical construct is thought to give mass to matter – without which the material world wouldn’t amount to much, pharm obviously. They hope to find it with the help of the massive and massively expensive Large Hadron Collider built by CERN along the Franco-Swiss border. Outside the scientific community it is whimsically referred to as the “God particle.”

In the March 8 Globe and Mail Rolf-Dieter Heuer, advice the director of CERN, is quoted as follows: “The Higgs particle is not easy to find. We know everything about the Higgs particle, except if it exists.”

Sort of like God, no?

Those who hope for the reconciliation of monotheism and modern science should be very pleased.

Book: Hera or Empathy

Ever since Plato, philosophers have been imagining future utopian societies. In more recent times, many of these fantasies have been about the doings of scientists because modern science fascinates us with the prospect of changing every aspect of our lives.

Hera is one of twelve sisters genetically modified by their neuroscientist parents to have superior mental faculties. During their teenage years the sisters were forced to flee for their lives from the remote Indonesian village where they were born. Later, Hera challenges her father’s right to have engineered his children, using the Biblical story of creation against him. But one day she discovers that the sisters’ genes contain modifications that their parents didn’t intend.

Book: Under Technology’s Thumb

Author: William Leiss
Publisher: McGill-Queen’s University Press (1990-01-01)
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The publication of William Leiss’ book The Domination of Nature brought him wide recognition as a perceptive and judicious author. In this brilliant new collection of essays on the philosophy of nature, Leiss argues effectively for an attitude of caring and respect for the environment rather than one of domination.

Table of Contents and Index: PDF

Book: Domination of Nature

Author: William Leiss 
Publisher: McGill-Queen’s University Press (1994-05-01) 
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Scientists, social thinkers, public officials, and the public have been aroused by the recognition that failure to understand the destructive impact of industrial society and advanced technologies on the delicate balance of organic life in the global ecosystem may result in devastating problems for future generations. William Leiss argues that this global predicament must be understood in terms of deeply rooted attitudes towards nature. He traces the origins, development, and social consequences of an idea whose imprint is everywhere in modern thought: the idea of the domination of nature.

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Book: C. B. Macpherson: Dilemmas of Liberalism and Socialism

Author: William Leiss
Original Publisher: St. Martin’s Press (1989-06-01)
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Reprint edition, with new Preface: Montréal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Order from http://mqup.mcgill.ca/book.php?bookid=2332

Canada’s pre-emininent political theorist, C.B. Macpherson won an international reputation for his controversial interpretations of liberalism.This book – the first to examine the entire range of his writings – seeks to place that interpretation of liberalism within the overall framework of his intellectual development.Focussing on two key themes property an t state – C.B. Macpherson: Dilemmas of Liberalism and Socialism tracks Macpherson’s analysis of the contradictions of liberal-democracy through all of his writings.The book concludes by exploring the usefulness of Macpherson’s important concept – that of the quasi-market society – as a way of understanding the distinctive character of contemporary industrial societies.

Table of Contents PDF

Book: The Limits to Satisfaction: An Essay on the Problem of Needs and Commodities

Author: William Leiss 
Publisher: McGill-Queen’s University Press (1988-09-01). http://mqup.mcgill.ca/book.php?bookid=847

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Leiss draws on economics, psychology, sociology, and anthropology to show the vagueness of our thought on the relation between nature and culture, desire and reason, needs and commodities. This book raises serious, vital questions for all those concerned about the future of our present society.

Table of Contents and Index: PDF