Faculty Member, School of Philosophy
About
Tom Greaves BA Sussex, MA, PhD Warwick. Lecturer
Teaches: Philosophy of History, Nietzsche and Post-Kantian Philosophy, Introduction to Philosophy, Philosophical Perspectives
Researches: Heidegger, environmental philosophy, hermeneutics and the philosophy of nature, the problem of nature in philosophy of history, German idealism and romanticism.
Research Interests
My research centres on the idea that environmental philosophy needs to be reconceived in very broad terms as a philosophy of nature, rather than as a particular sub-discipline of moral philosophy. The central problem of such a philosophy, as I understand it, is to develop a conception of how human beings can achieve freedom ‘in nature’, rather than prior to the constitution of nature or as a development out of nature. My PhD thesis was a study of Heidegger’s philosophy in the light of this problem, focusing on his conception of animal life. Heidegger’s concept of environment allows him to undo many traditional philosophical problems concerning the relationship of human beings to nature, but he insists that the way human beings inhabit their environment is different in kind from the way that other living beings inhabit theirs. I argued that this is not in itself problematic for the project of environmental philosophy, but that the terms in which Heidegger conceives animal environments require reassessment. I am currently expanding upon that project, focussing on two interrelated issues: i) Exploring what sense can be made of the notion of historicity, crucial to hermeneutic philosophy, in the context of philosophy nature, since nature has generally been understood as a-historical. R.G. Collingwood’s proposed move from the idea of nature to the idea of history is an interesting case in point; ii) Critiquing the notion of ‘second nature’, developed by such figures as Nietzsche and Adorno, as important but ultimately inadequate ways to understand the historicity of nature.
Biography
I began to study philosophy at Hills Road Sixth Form College, Cambridge, where I was enrolled in one of the first years to which A Level philosophy was available. I was immediately enthusiastic to find a discipline in which nothing was taken for granted and radical questioning was always encouraged. Philosophy should certainly be made far more widely available in schools, not only for its own sake, but for the stimulation it can provide for the study of other disciplines.
At Sussex I discovered that the continental tradition offered an integrated view of philosophical thinking, which draws upon literature, aesthetics and historical perspectives and refuses to divide philosophical inquiry into specialised fields, each dealing with its own technical problems. I was particularly drawn to the work of Martin Heidegger, who featured in various courses that I took with Rickie Dammann, Michael Morris and Paul Davis.
I spent part of the year following my BA in India, where I became involved in the Save Narmada Movement, which campaigns against the building of large dams and the environmental devastation and social injustice that they cause. My environmentalist sentiments were fused with a renewed appreciation of global politics and economics. Since then I have been involved in direct action in ecological and peace movements and in local green politics.
At Warwick University I was able to pursue my interest in continental philosophy and was led to an appreciation of less well know figures such as Henri Bergson and new research on Heidegger in Miguel de Beistegui’s course on Contributions to Philosophy. I conceived of a PhD project to be supervised by Miguel, which would explore Heidegger’s conception of living nature as a contribution to environmental philosophy, but was initially unable to secure funding for the project and spent a year teaching English as a foreign language and then learning German in Freiburg. I obtained funding on my second attempt and was later enabled to return to Freiburg for a year of research with a grant from the German Academic Exchange Service. I became an associate tutor at UEA just as I was finishing off my thesis and have recently been appointed to a one-year lectureship.
Publications and Editorships
Forthcoming Book:
Starting with Heidegger (Continuum, 2009)
Chapters in Edited Volumes:
'The Word's Silent Spring: Heidegger and Herder on Animality and the Origin of Language' in Heidegger and the Earth: Essays in Environmental Philosophy, ed. Ladelle McWhorter and Gail Stenstad, 2nd Ed. (Under review at University of Toronto Press)
'A Silent Dance: Eco-political Compositions after Uexküll's Biology' in An (Un)Easy Alliance – Thinking the Environment with Deleuze and Guattari (Cambridge Scholars Press, forthcoming 2008)
Issue Editor: Pli: The Warwick Journal of Philosophy. Volume 17 (2006)
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