with Rowman & Littlefield
The former chair of the UST Department of Philosophy and chief editor of Kritike: An Online Journal of Philosophy, Prof. Dr. Paolo A. Bola帽os, has recently published a new book with an international academic publisher, Rowman & Littlefield (Lexington Books). The title of 叠辞濒补帽辞蝉鈥� book, his second with an international publisher, is Nietzsche and Adorno on Philosophical Praxis, Language, and Reconciliation: Towards an Ethics of Thinking .
Bola帽os offers a philosophical notion of an 鈥渆thics of thinking,鈥� a kind of thinking that is receptive to the non-identical character of the world of human and non-human objects. He experiments with the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche and Theodor W. Adorno, who are presented as contemporary proponents of the 贵谤眉丑谤辞尘补苍迟颈办 tradition.
The author offers a reconstruction of the respective philosophies of language of Nietzsche and Adorno, and a rehearsal of their critique of metaphysics and identity thinking, to develop a notion of philosophical praxis grounded in the ethical dimension of thinking. Via Nietzsche and Adorno, he argues that thinking鈥檚 performative participation in uncertainty broadens the domain of reason, thereby also broadening our conceptual capacities and our receptivity to new possibilities of thinking. As an ethical praxis, thinking guards itself from the error of solidification, thereby opening philosophy to a reconciliatory, as opposed to domineering, reception of the world.
UST Department of Philosophy Chair Assoc. Prof. Dr. Jovito V. Cari帽o, mentions in his endorsement that 叠辞濒补帽辞蝉鈥� new book 鈥渃omes at a time when not just philosophy but also thinking itself is severely challenged by the persistence of an instrumental culture which reckons philosophic praxis and, to use 叠辞濒补帽辞蝉鈥� expression, metaphorical thinking, as a surplus of effective human functioning. His proposal for an ethics of thinking is certainly an important contribution to the philosophic discourse in the Philippines beyond the constrictions of myopic nationalism and the priority of thinking for utilitarian ends.鈥�
叠辞濒补帽辞蝉鈥� Nietzsche and Adorno on Philosophical Praxis, Language, and Reconciliation is just one among several new books produced by various members of the UST Department of Philosophy in 2020, despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic: Deleuze and Guattari鈥檚 Philosophy of 鈥楤ecoming-Revolutionary鈥� by Dr. Raniel Reyes (published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, UK), Doing Philosophy in the Philippines: The Thomasian Collection (1924-1949) edited by Prof. Emeritus Alfredo P. Co (published by the UST Publishing House), and The Hornedo Reader: Selected Philosophical Texts and Essays edited by Dr. Roland Theuas Pada (published by the UST Publishing House).
Aside from teaching Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts and Letters, and the Graduate School, Bola帽os is also a research fellow of the UST Research Center for Culture, Arts, and Humanities, a member of the Philippine Academy of Philosophical Research (PAPR), and author of On Affirmation and Becoming: A Deleuzian Introduction to Nietzsche鈥檚 Ethics and Ontology, published by Cambridge Scholars Publishers in 2014.
