Philosophers have long grappled with the nature of reality without agreeing on how to go about finding it. Which view is correct: absolutism or perspectivism? How could we ever know?Philosophy Unmasked is a subtly reasoned polemic that offers a critique and appraisal of analytic philosophy. It advances a metaphilosophical theory that expresses a skepticism about all first-order philosophical theories, contending that philosophy is a subjective enterprise, devoid of facts. Philosophy amounts ultimately to imposing one's values upon the phenomena with which one is confronted.Calhoun maintains that the academic, pseudo-scientific construction of philosophical "proofs" is misleading. Professional philosophers cite previous work and erect elaborate theoretical structures to persuade their readers; but such practice amounts to no more than seduction, since no one would find any philosopher's argument convincing unless one were predisposed to do so. In addition, academic philosophy has become professionalized to such a degree that skepticism among students is discouraged, and non-philosophers are excluded from dialogue, with the result that contemporary philosophy has become inaccessible and of little relevance to human life.Interweaving observations on such subjects as art, psychiatry, and science with her own experience in philosophy, Calhoun renders complex ideas comprehensible in a unique style. She reconsiders just what makes some philosophical works "respectable," and, in the Epilogue, contrasts her speculations with the work of Richard Rorty, another thinker who has criticized professional philosophy. According to Calhoun, extricating oneself from 'The Cave' amounts to no more and no less than recognizing the actual nature of what one is doing, and that no one of us mortals has a God's eye view of the world.Philosophy Unmasked combines theoretical and practical concerns in the manner of the great classical thinkers, offering social criticism in addition to metaphilosophical reflection. It is a provocative critique of the current state of academic philosophy, advancing an outlook that should change the course of professional philosophy for the next century.

Philosophy Unmasked: A Skeptic's Critique

Politics & Social Sciences

Calhoun, Laurie

Philosophy

University Press of Kansas

We live in an age of drone warfare, where the attacks on targets deemed to be threatening happens remotely. The decisions to kill are made covertly in rooms far away from the target, and we can now kill without being personally present. Killing has become all too easy and convenient. As a result, argues Laurie Calhoun in this provocative book, self-defense has become conflated with outright aggression, and black ops have become the standard military operating procedure. In this remarkable and often-shocking book, Calhoun dissects the moral, psychological, and cultural impact that these drone killings are having on modern society. In We Kill Because We Can she draws powerful, thought-provoking parallels between drone operators and mafia hitmen as well as the Trayvon Martin case and the killing of a teen in Yemen by drone. The result is a timely and provoking analysis of Western foreign policy and its disturbing use of remote-controlled death. "The drone assassination campaign is the most extraordinary global terror campaign yet conceived and executed. This chilling and comprehensive survey more than amply demonstrates that drone strikes are war crimes, and that this new technology is not only an effective device of mass murder at a distance, but that it also eliminates barriers for commanders to 'prosecute wars at their caprice.' That the technology will sooner or later be directed against the perpetrators is hardly in doubt, as the cycle of violence takes its predictable course."--Noam Chomsky

We Kill Because We Can: From Soldiering to Assassination in the Drone Age

History

Military

Zed Books

We live in an age of drone warfare, where the attacks on targets deemed to be threatening happens remotely. The decisions to kill are made covertly in rooms far away from the target, and we can now kill without being personally present. Killing has become all too easy and convenient. As a result, argues Laurie Calhoun in this provocative book, self-defense has become conflated with outright aggression, and black ops have become the standard military operating procedure. In this remarkable and often-shocking book, Calhoun dissects the moral, psychological, and cultural impact that these drone killings are having on modern society. In We Kill Because We Can she draws powerful, thought-provoking parallels between drone operators and mafia hitmen as well as the Trayvon Martin case and the killing of a teen in Yemen by drone. The result is a timely and provoking analysis of Western foreign policy and its disturbing use of remote-controlled death. “A clarion call to reverse course if we ever want to see an end to our military adventures abroad and what the author refers to as our ‘single-minded obsession with lethality as a solution to conflict.’ Read it and act!”—Medea Benjamin, author of Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control

When is a suicide not a suicide? You Can Leave, a novel by Laurie Calhoun, portrays a dark, disturbing, dystopic world where dissenters are permanently silenced whenever perceived of as threats by ruthless sociopaths occupying the highest corridors of power. The narrator relays her experiences at the hands of "the new mob", a coordinated network of operatives enlisted from all walks of life on a "need to know" basis to carry out what appear to be trivial tasks for enticing sums of money. Lost in the labyrinth of an insane bureaucracy run amok, the heroine charts her path to survival using the only available means: her capacity to think. But will that be taken away from her as well?Where Franz Kafka meets George Orwell meets Jorge Luis Borges, the world of You Can Leave is fraught with paranoia and fear but illuminated by the light of pure reason. As the targeted protagonist uses logic alone to surmount hurdle after hurdle, she leaps in and out of the frame created for her by the author, thereby forcing the reader to confront an unsettling possibility: Could this be the world in which we currently live?

You Can Leave: a novel

Literature & Fiction

Literary

Independently published

Questioning the COVID Company Line: Critical Thinking in Hysterical Times

The Libertarian Institute

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Books by Calhoun, Laurie