John McMurtry (academic)

Last updated

John McMurtry FRSC was a University Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Guelph, Canada. [1] Most recently, he has focused his research on the value structure of economic theory and its consequences for global civil and environmental life. [1] McMurtry was named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC) in June 2001 by his peers for his work regarding the study of humanities and social sciences. [2] [3]

Contents

McMurtry's principal research project in Philosophy spanning over seven years has followed from the invitation by the Secretariat of UNESCO/Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS, Paris-Oxford) to construct, author and edit Philosophy and World Problems [4] as a multi-volume study of world philosophy. Three sub-volumes entitled "Western Philosophy and the Life-Ground", "Modes of Reason", and "Philosophy, Human Nature and Society" have been written with internationally distinguished philosophers contributing to five topic areas in each of these general fields.

The central title study by McMurtry, entitled, "What is Good, What is Bad? The Value of All Values Across Time, Place and Theories", is an encompassing in-depth critical study of known world philosophies and fields to explain the inner logic of each canon and school in relationship to world problems across languages and eras including the method of life-value onto-axiology which is deployed to excavate, explain and resolve life-blind presuppositions of the world's major thought-systems from the ancients East and West to modern and contemporary philosophy.

Biography

John McMurtry received his doctorate from University College, London in the United Kingdom after completing his BA and MA at the University of Toronto, Canada where he also joined the Zeta Psi fraternity. Prior to doctoral studies, he was "a professional football player, print and television journalist, academic English teacher and world-traveller". [2] In his autobiographic article "The Human Vocation: An Autobiography of Higher Education" for the scholarly journal Nordicum-Mediterraneum, [5] McMurtry recounts the most salient moments of his formative years and states that he "came to philosophy as a last resort, because as someone naturally disposed to question unexamined assumptions and conventional beliefs, I could find no other profession which permitted this vocation at the appropriate level of research."

Value theory is his unifying field of research, as he has published and taught in as diverse fields of inquiry as social and political philosophy, Asian/Indian and Chinese philosophy, philosophy of economics, philosophy of education, philosophy and literature, philosophy of history, post-Kant continental philosophy, the logic of natural language, and philosophy of the environment.

He is also part of the peace movement and international law study bodies. [6] He served as Chair of Jurists, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity Tribunal at the Alternative World Summit in Toronto, 1989. [6] His professional work has been published in over 150 books and journals, including Inquiry, the Monist, the Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Praxis International, the Encyclopaedia of Ethics, Atlantic Monthly, Guardian Weekly, and the Norton Anthology of Prose.

Political, philosophical, and economic views

McMurtry's recent research has focused on the underlying value structure of economic theory, its consequences for global civil and environmental life, and the life ground and civil commons. McMurtry considers the global free market "inefficient and life-destructive" in proportion to how unregulated it is by life needs (that without which life capacity is reduced) and by life capital (human and ecological life wealth that reproduces more life wealth if not run down). [7] In general, four principles of analysis and development are applied: the life-ground (all the conditions required to take one's next breath), life value (whatever enables life capacities), life capital (means of life that can produce more means of life without loss and cumulative gain), and civil commons (any social construct that enables universal access of community members to life goods through time).

In Unequal Freedoms: The Global Market As An Ethical System, 1998, he examines the underlying value system of the global market and claims that it constructs the opposite of the "free and democratic society" it claims to bring about.

In The Cancer Stage of Capitalism, 1999, he claims a propensity of human societies to assume the social order in which they live as good however life-destructive they may be, focusing on financial capitalism as displaying the hallmark characteristics of a cancer invasion at the social level of life organization. He conceives "the civil commons" as a social immune system.

In Value Wars: The Global Market Versus the Life Economy, 2002, he criticizes capitalist scientific technology, transnational trade apparatuses, NATO wars, and an expanding prison regime as symptoms of a "new totalitarianism cumulatively occupying the world and propelling civil and ecological breakdowns", and proposes constitutional standards of a "life economy".

McMurtry addressed the 9/11 conspiracy theories to explain the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. In one lecture, he drew comparisons to the event of the Reichstag fire and argued that the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021) was lobbied for and exploited by multinational corporations. [8] Journalist Jonathan Kay includes him among the most influential Canadian members of the largely American 9/11 truth movement. [9] [10]

Publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Max Weber</span> German sociologist, jurist, and political economist (1864–1920)

Maximilian Karl Emil Weber was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas profoundly influence social theory and research. While Weber did not see himself as a sociologist, he is recognized as one of the fathers of sociology, along with Karl Marx and Émile Durkheim.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anti-capitalism</span> Political ideology and movement opposed to capitalism

Anti-capitalism is a political ideology and movement encompassing a variety of attitudes and ideas that oppose capitalism. In this sense, anti-capitalists are those who wish to replace capitalism with another type of economic system, such as socialism, anarchism, communism, syndicalism, or some combination of the latter four.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Ritzer</span> American sociologist (born 1940)

George Ritzer is an American sociologist, professor, and author who has mainly studied globalization, metatheory, patterns of consumption, and modern/postmodern social theory. His concept of McDonaldization draws upon Max Weber's idea of rationalization through the lens of the fast food industry. He coined the term after writing The McDonaldization of Society (1993), which is among the best selling monographs in the history of American sociology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Taylor (philosopher)</span> Canadian philosopher (born 1931)

Charles Margrave Taylor is a Canadian philosopher from Montreal, Quebec, and professor emeritus at McGill University best known for his contributions to political philosophy, the philosophy of social science, the history of philosophy, and intellectual history. His work has earned him the Kyoto Prize, the Templeton Prize, the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy, and the John W. Kluge Prize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Commodity fetishism</span> Concept in Marxist analysis

In Marxist philosophy, the term commodity fetishism describes the economic relationships of production and exchange as being social relationships that exist among things and not as relationships that exist among people. As a form of reification, commodity fetishism presents economic value as inherent to the commodities, and not as arising from the workforce, from the human relations that produced the commodity, the goods and the services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Economic sociology</span> Branch of sociology

Economic sociology is the study of the social cause and effect of various economic phenomena. The field can be broadly divided into a classical period and a contemporary one, known as "new economic sociology".

The nature of capitalism is criticized by left-wing anarchists, who reject hierarchy and advocate stateless societies based on non-hierarchical voluntary associations. Anarchism is generally defined as the libertarian philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary and harmful as well as opposing authoritarianism, illegitimate authority and hierarchical organization in the conduct of human relations. Capitalism is generally considered by scholars to be an economic system that includes private ownership of the means of production, creation of goods or services for profit or income, the accumulation of capital, competitive markets, voluntary exchange and wage labor which has generally been opposed by anarchists historically. Since capitalism is variously defined by sources and there is no general consensus among scholars on the definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category, the designation is applied to a variety of historical cases, varying in time, geography, politics and culture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leo Panitch</span> Canadian Marxist academic

Leo Victor Panitch was a distinguished research professor of political science and a Canada Research Chair in comparative political economy at York University. From 1985 until the 2021 edition, he served as co-editor of the Socialist Register, which describes itself as "an annual survey of movements and ideas from the standpoint of the independent new left". Panitch himself saw the Register as playing a major role in developing Marxism's conceptual framework for advancing a democratic, co-operative and egalitarian socialist alternative to capitalist competition, exploitation, and insecurity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marxism</span> Economic and sociopolitical worldview

Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectical perspective to view social transformation. It originates from the works of 19th-century German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. As Marxism has developed over time into various branches and schools of thought, no single, definitive Marxist theory exists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Progress</span> Movement towards a refined, improved, or otherwise desired state

Progress is the movement towards a refined, improved, or otherwise desired state. In the context of progressivism, it refers to the proposition that advancements in technology, science, and social organization have resulted, and by extension will continue to result, in an improved human condition; the latter may happen as a result of direct human action, as in social enterprise or through activism, or as a natural part of sociocultural evolution.

Crawford Brough Macpherson was an influential Canadian political scientist who taught political theory at the University of Toronto.

Criticism of technology is an analysis of adverse impacts of industrial and digital technologies. It is argued that, in all advanced industrial societies, technology becomes a means of domination, control, and exploitation, or more generally something which threatens the survival of humanity. Some of the technology opposed by the most radical critics may include everyday household products, such as refrigerators, computers, and medication. However, criticism of technology comes in many shades.

James Hamilton Tully is a Canadian philosopher who is the Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Law, Indigenous Governance and Philosophy at the University of Victoria, Canada. Tully is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and Emeritus Fellow of the Trudeau Foundation.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to anarchism, generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority and hierarchical organization in the conduct of human relations. Proponents of anarchism, known as anarchists, advocate stateless societies or non-hierarchical voluntary associations.

Articles in social and political philosophy include:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen Gill (political scientist)</span>

Stephen Gill, FRSC is Distinguished Research Professor of Political Science at York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He is known for his work in International Relations and Global Political Economy and has published, among others, Power and Resistance in the New World Order, Power, Production and Social Reproduction, Gramsci, Historical Materialism and International Relations (1993), American Hegemony and the Trilateral Commission (1990) and The Global Political Economy: Perspectives, Problems and Policies.

This is a list of philosophical literature articles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Exploitation of labour</span> Economic phenomenon

Exploitation of labour is a concept defined as, in its broadest sense, one agent taking unfair advantage of another agent. It denotes an unjust social relationship based on an asymmetry of power or unequal exchange of value between workers and their employers. When speaking about exploitation, there is a direct affiliation with consumption in social theory and traditionally this would label exploitation as unfairly taking advantage of another person because of their inferior position, giving the exploiter the power.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Critical theory</span> Philosophy that sociological understandings primary use should be social reform

A critical theory is any approach to social philosophy that focuses on society and culture to reveal, critique and challenge power structures. With roots in sociology and literary criticism, it argues that social problems stem more from social structures and cultural assumptions than from individuals. It argues that ideology is the principal obstacle to human liberation. Critical theory finds applications in various fields of study, including psychoanalysis, sociology, history, communication theory, philosophy and feminist theory.

John O'Neill (1933-2022) was a Canadian sociologist, phenomenologist, and social theorist known for his writings on critical social theory, philosophy, political economy, literary theory, psychoanalysis, and mass culture. O’Neill was the author, editor, and translator of over 30 books and hundreds of articles, many of which have been translated into French, German, Japanese, and Mandarin. O’Neill's work focuses on the notion of corporeal knowledge and embodiment as mediated by familial relationships and social welfare. O’Neill was Distinguished Professor of Sociology at York University (Emeritus), where he also co-founded the Programme in Social and Political Thought in 1972.

References

  1. 1 2 "John McMurtry". www.uoguelph.ca. College of Arts, University of Guelph . Retrieved 16 September 2021.
  2. 1 2 "Campus News: U of G Professor named to Royal Society of Canada". www.uoguelph.ca. June 26, 2001.
  3. "The Royal Society of Canada". Complete List of Fellows. Archived from the original on 5 April 2012. Retrieved 28 September 2011.
  4. "Philosophy and World Problems - Ed. John McMurtry". www.eolss.net.
  5. John McMurtry, "The Human Vocation: An Autobiography of Higher Education," Nordicum-Mediterraneum: Icelandic E-journal of Nordic and Mediterranean Studies, 3(2), December 2008. Retrieved 28.01.2015.
  6. 1 2 "Dr. John McMurtry". iprd.org.uk. Institute for Policy Research & Development. Archived from the original on 5 June 2012.
  7. How the Free Market Destroys Life, by John McMurtry in The New Internationalist .
  8. John McMurtry, Why the Facts of 9/11 are Suppressed," Intl. Citizens Inquiry into 9-11, Toronto, May 30, 2004. (video, 51 min.). Retrieved 28.01.2015
  9. Kay, Jonathan (December 12, 2012). "Meet Joshua Blakeney, the Iran-sponsored 'reporter' spinning conspiracism about abducted aboriginals". National Post .
  10. Kay, Jonathan (2011). Among the Truthers: A Journey Through America's Growing Conspiracist Underground . New York: Harper. p.  88. ISBN   978-0-06-200481-9.