The Origins of Planetary Ethics in the Philosophy of Russian Cosmism
The Origins of Planetary Ethics in the Philosophy of Russian Cosmism

Author: A. Bezgodov

Publisher: Xlibris Corporation

Published: 2019-01-28

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13: 1543494188

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In this book, Aleksandr V. Bezgodov and Konstantin V. Barezhev formulate planetary ethics—the most important part of the philosophy of the Planetary Project. Planetary ethics represent the moral basis and value code for building a biocompatible, harmonious, and manageable civilization. They analyze the moral and ethical views of those Russian cosmists who belonged to the natural science branch of this unique philosophical, scientific, and cultural phenomenon. Looking at the world through the prism of a planetary-cosmic consciousness, cosmists developed a system of biocentric and humanistic values. Russian cosmism is a spiritual rebellion of life against chaos, death, and limitation. A combination of science, philosophy, poetry, and a certain utopianism extended on a universal scale makes Russian cosmism a prologue to the modern nonclassical, science-based worldview that emphasizes synergy and globalism. Back in the late nineteenth to early twentieth century, cosmists focused on a united humanity and the principles of a close relationship between man and the universe. This monograph lays the groundwork for the planetary ethics that originated in the philosophy of Russian cosmism. The monograph continues the series of books of the Planetary Project, Planetary Project: From Sustainable Development to Managed Harmony and Planetary Rent as an Instrument for Solving Global Problems.

The Russian Cosmists
The Russian Cosmists

Author: George M. Young

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2012-08-01

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 0199892954

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In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, a controversial school of Russian religious and scientific thinkers emerged, united in the conviction that humanity was entering a new stage of evolution and must assume a new, active, managerial role in the cosmos. The ideas of the Cosmists have in recent decades been rediscovered and embraced by many Russian intellectuals. In the first account in English of this fascinating tradition, George M. Young offers a dynamic and wide-ranging examination of the lives and ideas of the Russian Cosmists.

Russian Cosmism
Russian Cosmism

Author: Boris Groys

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2024-08-20

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 0262552884

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Crucial texts, many available in English for the first time, written before and during the Bolshevik Revolution by the radical biopolitical utopianists of Russian Cosmism. Cosmism emerged in Russia before the October Revolution and developed through the 1920s and 1930s; like Marxism and the European avant-garde, two other movements that shared this intellectual moment, Russian Cosmism rejected the contemplative for the transformative, aiming to create not merely new art or philosophy but a new world. Cosmism went the furthest in its visions of transformation, calling for the end of death, the resuscitation of the dead, and free movement in cosmic space. This volume collects crucial texts, many available in English for the first time, by the radical biopolitical utopianists of Russian Cosmism. Cosmism was developed by the Russian philosopher Nikolai Fedorov in the late nineteenth century; he believed that humans had an ethical obligation not only to care for the sick but to cure death using science and technology; outer space was the territory of both immortal life and infinite resources. After the revolution, a new generation pursued Fedorov's vision. Cosmist ideas inspired visual artists, poets, filmmakers, theater directors, novelists (Tolstoy and Dostoevsky read Fedorov's writings), architects, and composers, and influenced Soviet politics and technology. In the 1930s, Stalin quashed Cosmism, jailing or executing many members of the movement. Today, when the philosophical imagination has again become entangled with scientific and technological imagination, the works of the Russian Cosmists seem newly relevant. Contributors Alexander Bogdanov, Alexander Chizhevsky, Nikolai Fedorov, Boris Groys, Valerian Muravyev, Alexander Svyatogor, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Anton Vidokle, Brian Kuan Wood A copublication with e-flux, New York

The Future of Immortality
The Future of Immortality

Author: Anya Bernstein

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2019-06-25

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0691182612

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A gripping account of the Russian visionaries who are pursuing human immortality As long as we have known death, we have dreamed of life without end. In The Future of Immortality, Anya Bernstein explores the contemporary Russian communities of visionaries and utopians who are pressing at the very limits of the human. The Future of Immortality profiles a diverse cast of characters, from the owners of a small cryonics outfit to scientists inaugurating the field of biogerontology, from grassroots neurotech enthusiasts to believers in the Cosmist ideas of the Russian Orthodox thinker Nikolai Fedorov. Bernstein puts their debates and polemics in the context of a long history of immortalist thought in Russia, with global implications that reach to Silicon Valley and beyond. If aging is a curable disease, do we have a moral obligation to end the suffering it causes? Could immortality be the foundation of a truly liberated utopian society extending beyond the confines of the earth—something that Russians, historically, have pondered more than most? If life without end requires radical genetic modification or separating consciousness from our biological selves, how does that affect what it means to be human? As vividly written as any novel, The Future of Immortality is a fascinating account of techno-scientific and religious futurism—and the ways in which it hopes to transform our very being.

Art without Death
Art without Death

Author: E-Flux Journal

Publisher: National Geographic Books

Published: 2017-09-08

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 3956793528

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According to the nineteenth-century teachings of Nikolai Fedorov—librarian, religious philosopher, and progenitor of Russian cosmism—our ethical obligation to use reason and knowledge to care for the sick extends to curing the dead of their terminal status. The dead must be brought back to life using means of advanced technology—resurrected not as souls in heaven, but in material form, in this world, with all their memories and knowledge. Fedorov's call to redistribute vital forces is wildly imaginative in emancipatory ambition. Today, it might appear arcane in its mystical panpsychism or eccentric in its embrace of realities that exist only in science fiction or certain diabolical strains of Silicon Valley techno-utopian ideology. It can be difficult to grasp how it ended up influencing the thinking behind a generation of young revolutionary anarchists and Marxists who incorporated Fedorov's ideas under their own brand of biocosmism before the 1917 Russian Revolution, even giving rise to the origins of the Soviet space program. This book of interviews and conversations with today's most compelling living and resurrected artists and thinkers seeks to address the relevance of Russian cosmism and biocosmism in light of its influence on the Russian artistic and political vanguard as well as on today's art-historical apparatuses, weird materialisms, extinction narratives, and historical and temporal politics. This unprecedented collection of exchanges on cosmism asks how such an encompassing and imaginative, unapologetically humanist and anthropocentric strain of thinking could have been so historically and politically influential, especially when placed alongside the politically inconsequential—but in some sense equally encompassing—apocalypticism of contemporary realist imaginaries. Contributors Bart De Baere, Franco “Bifo” Berardi, Boris Groys, Elena Shaposhnikova, Marina Simakova, Hito Steyerl, Anton Vidokle, Brian Kuan Wood, Arseny Zhilyaev, Esther Zonsheim Published in parallel with the eponymous exhibition at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin. Series edited by Julieta Aranda, Brian Kuan Wood, Stephen Squibb, Anton Vidokle Design by Jeff Ramsey, front cover design by Liam Gillick

The Metaphysical Basis of Ethics
The Metaphysical Basis of Ethics

Author: Consuelo Preti

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-12-09

Total Pages: 285

ISBN-13: 1137319070

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This book remedies the absence in the history of analytic philosophy of a detailed examination of G. E. Moore’s philosophical views as they developed between 1894 and 1902. This period saw the inauguration of analytic philosophy through the work of Moore and Bertrand Russell. Moore’s early views are examined in detail through unpublished archival material, including surviving letters, diaries, notes of lectures attended, papers for Cambridge societies, and drafts of early work, in order to revise the established view that the origin of analytic philosophy at Cambridge was an abrupt split from F. H. Bradley’s Absolute Idealism. Traditional accounts of this period have highlighted the anti-psychologism of Frege’s logic but have not explored the impact of this movement more broadly. Anti-psychologism was a key feature of the work of Moore’s teachers on the nature of the mind and its objects, in their interpretation of Kant, and in ethics. Moore’s teachers G.F. Stout and James Ward were significant contributors to the late 19th century debates in mental science and the developing new science of psychology. Henry Sidgwick’s criticisms of Kant and Bradley and his leading work in ethics were key influences on Moore. Moore’s Trinity Fellowship Dissertations are essential historical evidence of the development of Moore's new theory of judgment, a theory whose defining role in the origins of analytic philosophy cannot be overstated. Moore’s study of Kant in his dissertations ultimately formed the groundwork for his Principia Ethica (1903), which evolved from ideas that manifested in Moore’s earliest Apostles’ papers, developed through his dissertations, and were refined through his Elements of Ethics lectures (1898-99). This monumental work of early twentieth century ethics is thus shown to be the culmination of Moore’s early philosophical development.

Cosmic Society
Cosmic Society

Author: Peter Dickens

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2007-11-08

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 113418980X

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Space weaponry, satellite surveillance and communications, and private space travel are all means in which outer space is being humanized: incorporated into society’s projects. But what are the political implications of society not only being globalized, but becoming ‘cosmic’? Our ideas about society have long affected, and been affected by, our understanding of the universe: large sections of our economy and society are now organized around humanity’s use of outer space. Our view of the universe, our increasingly ‘cosmic’ society, and even human consciousness are being transformed by new relations with the cosmos. As the first sociological book to tackle humanity’s relationship with the universe, this fascinating volume links social theory to classical and contemporary science, and proposes a new ‘cosmic’ social theory. Written in a punchy, student-friendly style, this timely book engages with a range of topical issues, including cyberspace, terrorism, tourism, surveillance and globalization.

The Biosphere
The Biosphere

Author: Vladimir I. Vernadsky

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1461217504

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"Vladimir Vernadsky was a brilliant and prescient scholar-a true scientific visionary who saw the deep connections between life on Earth and the rest of the planet and understood the profound implications for life as a cosmic phenomenon." -DAVID H. GRINSPOON, AUTHOR OF VENUS REVEALED "The Biosphere should be required reading for all entry level students in earth and planetary sciences." -ERIC D. SCHNEIDER, AUTHOR OF INTO THE COOL: THE NEW THERMODYNAMICS OF CREATIVE DESTRUCTION

The Ethics of Space Exploration
The Ethics of Space Exploration

Author: James S.J. Schwartz

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-07-25

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 331939827X

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This book aims to contribute significantly to the understanding of issues of value (including the ultimate value of space-related activities) which repeatedly emerge in interdisciplinary discussions on space and society. Although a recurring feature of discussions about space in the humanities, the treatment of value questions has tended to be patchy, of uneven quality and even, on occasion, idiosyncratic rather than drawing upon a close familiarity with state-of-the-art ethical theory. One of the volume's aims is to promote a more robust and theoretically informed approach to the ethical dimension of discussions on space and society. While the contributions are written in a manner which is accessible across disciplines, the book still withstands scrutiny by those whose work is primarily on ethics. At the same time it allows academics across a range of disciplines an insight into current approaches toward how the work of ethics gets done. The issues of value raised could be used to inform debates about regulation, space law and protocols for microbial discovery as well as longer-range policy debates about funding.