Talk:John N. Gray
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[edit] Gray's position and qualifications
An anon IP just edited the intro, and I'm wondering whether the new edit is correct. It says: "John Gray (born 1948), School Professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics, prominent British political philosopher, educated at Jesus College, Oxford (BA, MPhil, DPhil)."
First, what is the significance of saying he's the School Professor, rather than Professor? And I've read elsewhere that he went to Exeter College e.g. here His LSE website doesn't say. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:27, May 1, 2005 (UTC)
- This also says Exeter. I'm going to change it. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:34, May 1, 2005 (UTC)
Yes hello I edited the intro. Apologies for making the mistake about Exeter/Jesus - you are absolutely right, and I came on here today to change it but you beat me to it. Technically there is a difference between "School Professor" (how he's listed on the LSE profile page at http://www.lse.ac.uk/people/j.gray@lse.ac.uk/) and simply "Professor"; the former title was created while the LSE was under the Directorship of Giddens, and reflected what was originally (I think) some sort of special short term (6 year?) appointment while he left his chair at Oxford - though Gray may well stay at LSE permanently. As usual someone else may correct me again if I'm wrong on this.
- Hi, I saw the LSE calls him School Professor, but his publications simply say Professor of European Thought, so I wondered whether the School thing was appropriate for WP as it seems to be just an internal reference. But I'm fine with it.
- I'm not fine with the rest of the article though, which could do with some expansion; in fact, a rewrite, though I don't have time myself for the next few weeks anyway. But if you'd like to have a go, by all means feel free.
- By the way, it's helpful if you could sign your posts on the talk pages so other editors can see who said what. You can generate your signature by typing four tildes after your posts, like this ~~~~. This will produce your IP, time and date. If you don't want your IP to show up (as it currently does in the edit history), then you can sign up for a user name. It only takes a few seconds, and another advantage is that edits and posts from user names tend to be taken more seriously than from IP addresses. Best, SlimVirgin (talk) 17:17, May 2, 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Worked at
Why has user named pedant changed the wording to "works/worked as" in numerous places ("He formerly worked as a lecturer in political theory at the University of Essex")? One hardly ever sees it written like that in the academe, it looks and seems highly awkward. Also why on earth link to a page on "currently", especially when that takes you to a page on the current date at time of clicking? Oh and thanks for helpful comments above, I will get round to registering soon!
[edit] Rapacious species
greetings, I have just removed the line "in which he portrays humanity as a rapacious species engaged in wiping out other forms of life while destroying its natural environment.". I'm presently reading straw dogs, and while the preceeding is accurate, I think in the context in which it is likely to be viewed by the average reader, it is a misleading summary of the book. I've added "in which he denies humanity's special status with respect to other living things". duracell
- I think he does a bit more than simply deny humanity's special status. He sees us as a dominant and dangerous species. Could you sign your posts, please? See Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages. SlimVirgin (talk) 18:36, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)
I tihnk you may be missing the point. As I said, your comment is accurate. But, it is not the central theme of this book. *everyone* thinks that we are a "dominant and dangerous species". That is a completely unoriginal point. The point Gray is making is that liberal humanism sees humans as having a special status. This status, humanists think, will allow us to transcend the boundaries placed on other animals qua being animals. But, Gray argues, this is illusory - and in fact based on christian thinking, which liberal humanists ostensibly reject. We are in no sense "different" to other animals - by virtue of conscious reflection, free will or anything else (all of which he spends a good deal of the book setting forth). Hence, the line I inserted is more accurate. The book is "an excoriating attack on humanist progressivism abnd all its derivatives" (D. Marquand, "New statesman") "a hectoring attack on man-centered thinking" (Ian thompson "the independent") "A disturbing and thought provoking book. Are we really that different from animals?" (sunday tribune). All of which, of cuorse, come from the inside cover of the granta paperback of this book.
Lets just change it to "an attack on humanist progressivism" ok? duracell
- Hi, he doesn't only reject the notion that we're special; he describes us as a particularly appalling species. I think an earlier version of the page did allude to us as nothing but a genetic accident, or words to that effect. Can't we keep both: your attack on humanist progressivism, and rapacious species destroying its own and others' environment? By the way, you can sign your name by typing four tildes after your posts. See Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages. SlimVirgin (talk) 14:17, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)
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- rather a large post below, but I enjoyed writing it and thinking about it.
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- Ok, look "appalling" with respect to what? his central message is that we do away with notions like this, becasue they imply that humans are somehow special. Think of it like this: no other animal can be "appalling". Have you ever heard people going on about the morality and free choice of hyenas or the HIV virus? Those things are not seen as bearers of responsibility. So, if we can be appalling, it must be because there is something special about us - we have "free will" and so on. And, by virtue of these properties (so the humanist thinks), we will be able to transform the world into whatever form we see fit, so we have a responsibilty to protect other animals etc. That we are "appalling" means we abrogate this reponsibility. Needless to say, Gray does not have much time for this idea. For him, "cities are as natural as bee hives". Individual humans probably dont really even have free will - let alone humans as a species. So you see, he is saying that it makes no sense to call us "appalling". It is a category error, in the sense that we mean it here. I dont imagine he thinks it is a category error in all circumstances though - he's not necessarily a relativist in terms of ethics. I dont know what his ethics are actually. He does still think that we will wipe out a good many species, most especially ourselves. But, we are powerless to stop ourselves (just like *any other animal*), so it makes no sense to hold us responsible.
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- Actually, I have revised my opinion, and I am not even sure your comment really represents the books position at all. Our behaviour does not make us particularly "dangerous". Like lovelock, Gray is at pains to make clear that the biosphere will be fine, whatever we do. We may temporarily cause imbalance - but the result of this will just be our own destruction, and the restoration of more conditions more generally viable for most living things (this is Gaia theory, see e.g daisy world model. In general, the natural, non-evolved (becasue there's no selection between biospheres, on account of theres only 1 of them) occurence of homeostasis). We may wipe out particular species - but we cannot wipe out the whole biosphere. It will wipe us out, make us change or adapt to us. Think of the first photosynthesising lifeforms. They released a terrible toxic substance into the environment (oxygen was toxic to all life 2 or 3 billion years ago) and in the process must have caused mass extinctions. Appalling?
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- Those observations are *part* of his argument aginst the special status of humanity. that is the conceptual theme of the book, philosophically (and it is a *philosophy* book).He also turns his guns on the green movement, who he sees as humanist progressives, yet your comments would seem to carry within them the implicit message that he is a supporter of the green movement. He is much subtler than that, as I have tried to argue.
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- I have found this book so interesting, I'm actually considering writing something (not here, obviously) about why I think he very narrowly misses the point. Taking inspiration from neo-darwinism, Gray's ultimately nihilistic perspective is based on the notion that evolution is "random" (as you say). But, there are other views on evolution than neodarwinism. In my line, I look at how the brain harnesses self-organising properties. This is just a fancy way of saying it harnessess naturally occuring patterns. Thats how come something so complex can evolve "randomly". At each level of complexity, evolution harnesses intrinsic pattern formation to produce the next level of complexity. But there is a real sense in which those patterns were there to be found, implicit in the meso-level physics around us. Moreover, there seems to be a ratcheting effect whereby complexity is retained; life has on the whole got more complex. I choose to see significance in that - and it *is* a choice, although I agree with him that most things aren't. Maybe that makes me a "progressive". See the work of stuart kauffman, Francisco Varela (mentioned in straw dogs) Scott Kelso for all this, generally emerging views in many areas of science which put non-linear dynamics on center stage Duracell 16:15, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
sorry - just to clarify - the *point* of the foregoing was to show that a single line description of the central theme of this book as "humans are dangerous to the environment and other species" is just wrong. A single line description could be "denies special status of humans", but "attack on liberal, humanist progessives, who he sees as tacitly deriving their ideas from religeon" is best. Duracell 17:09, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I've now added my edit to this article, which I insist on despite the fact that you are an "adminstrator" or whatever. As it happens, I consider these and related issues proffesionally, so I would urge you to consider my contribution. If you do not find it satisfactory, might I suggest we contact John Gray for his opinion? I do appreciate that his opinion is probably not as important as that of an adminstrator, however,
C Duracell 17:46, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
[edit] When was John Gray born?
The Guardian article says he was born in 1947. It also has no mention that he taught in the University of Essex.
The copyright page of Liberalisms (1989), gives a birthdate of Nov. 5, 1948, which is also the date that libraries use to distinguish him from other authors with the same name. Brown's article contains at least one factual error: Straw Dogs wasn't published in 2000, but two years later, and, if Gray hadn't matriculated at Oxford until he was nearly 21, it probably would have come up in newspaper profiles before.
24.129.37.143 03:17, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
