Interviewed by TVL for evening program

Today I was interviewed (online) by TVL about how we treat animals. The interview will air tonight around 8 p.m. in the programme TVL-magasinet. The journalists interviewing me were Vemund Sødal and Hanna Pettersen.

Participating in three events during "Wonderful world" 2024 philosophy and science festival

This week the philosophy and science festival "Wonderful World" 2024 is held in Stavanger, Norway. I take part in three events:

• On Thursday 7 p.m. I serve as commentator following Einar Duenger Bøhn´s talk "Jaktens etikk og filosofi" (The ethics and philosophy of hunting) 
• On Thursday 8.30 p.m.  serve as commentator following Rupert Sheldrake´s talk "Is the universe conscious?"
• On Friday at noon I take part in the discussion panel "Panpsykisme - brobygger mellom materie og bevissthet?" (Panpsychism - building bridges between matter and consciousness?" along with Hedda Hassel Mørch and Einar Duenger Bøhn (Vegard Møller is moderator)

Svendsen book review proof-read

I have just read and reviewed page proofs for my forthcoming book review. Full reference:

Tønnessen, Morten, forthcoming, 2019. Lars Fr. H. Svendsen: Å forstå dyr: Filosofi for hunde- og katteelskere. Book review. Norsk Filosofisk Tidsskrift 54(3): 187–190. DOI: https://doi.org/BOKMELDING 10.18261/issn.1504-2901-2019-03-06

Springs sixteenth article writing day; Svendsen book review finished

I have just finished my book review of Lars Fr. H. Svendsen´s Å forstå dyr: Filosofi for hunde- og katteelskere (Understanding animals: Philosophy for dog and cat lovers), which will appear in Norsk Filosofisk Tidsskrift this autumn.

This was my sixteenth and last article writing day this Spring (sic). Altogether I have logged some 14.361 words written this Spring (articles/book chapters only; quantifiable projects only).

Chronicle in Noahs ark

Noahs ark - magasinet for dyrs rettigheter no. 3, 2018, features a chronicle by me entitled "Menneskedyrets plass i verden" (The human animal´s place in the world), which is an edited and shortened version of a longer article I wrote some years back.

Autumn´s third writing day

Today I had the third writing day this autumn (out of four planned so far), with 5 hours off-email time devoted to focused academic writing. I wrote a little bit on "The case for minimizing anthropogenic mortality in wildlife management" and more on "Human development, inequality and social risks in Latin America and the Nordic countries". Altogether I wrote close to 1.000 words. 

To write book review of Svendsen 2018

I have agreed to write a book review of Lars Svendsen´s Å forstå dyr [Understanding animals] for Norsk filosofisk tidsskrift - which is now an online only publication.

Panel "Animals and philosophy" held at MAC4

Today I participated in the panel "Animals and philosophy", moderated by Andy Lamey and with the panel also including Dale Jamieson, Erin McKenna and Mylan Engel  Jr. The panel was attended by some 50 people.

 

"Beyond sentience" chapter to appear in December

The book chapter "Beyond sentience: Biosemiotics as foundation for animal and environmental ethics", co-written by Jonathan Beever and myself (see previous posts), which is to appear in John Hadley and Elisa Aaltola (eds), Animal ethics and Philosophy: Questioning the Orthodoxy (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers), has now been scheduled for publication in December 2014 (previously 2015).

Animal ethics book renamed again

The edited collection formerly entitled Animal rights and philosophy: The next generation, edited by John Hadley and Elisa Aaltola and to be publised by Rowman & Littlefield, has been renamed Animal ethics and Philosophy: Questioning the Orthodoxy. 

Jonathan Beever and I are contributing with a chapter entitled "Beyond sentience: Biosemiotics as foundation for animal and environmental ethics". 

See also:

New work title for animal philosophy collection (September 2013)

New work title for animal philosophy collection

The forthcoming collection edited by John Hadley and Elisa Aaltola, which was formerly titled Animal meta-ethics: New directions in animal philosophy, now has a new work title: Animal rights and philosophy: The next generation. I am involved with the chapter "Beyond sentience: Biosemiotics as foundation for animal and environmental ethics", co-authored with Jonathan Beever.

Abstract: "Animal and Eve: How representations of wolves and sheep are used to construct human identities"

Yesterday I wrote and submitted the following abstract to the international workshop "Humanimals: Examining Histories and Productions of Animal-Human Relationships", to be held in Oslo September 26-27th:

Animal and Eve: How representations of wolves and sheep are used to construct human identities

Morten Tønnessen

Associate professor at University of Stavanger (Department of health studies) and Chair of Minding Animals Norway

The questions of the nature of the wolf, sheep, and humans, are methodologically problematic for two different reasons: Human’s nature because we are the topic to be investigated; the wolf’s and the sheep’s nature because we are not wolves nor sheep. However, what we think about what it is like to be a wolf or a sheep actually says a great deal about what it means, for us, to be human.

Wolves and sheep are among the animals that have been the most significant in terms of cultural impact. The animal representations involving these two animals – which are often perceived as being in fundamental opposition to each other – are countless; only a few examples can be mentioned in this paper. These include wolf-derived names from Adolf Hitler to Varg Vikernes, words and expressions (“lone wolf terrorist”), fairy tales and Bible stories, and canine or ovine appearances in a number of contemporary TV series and movies. Whereas the werewolf is conceptually a wolfman, the hilarious 2006 movie Black Sheep introduced the weresheep (and thus the sheepman).

In popular culture, the wolf symbolizes evil, bottomless hunger, and raw sexuality. The fact that in old Norse “vargr” (cf. the Swedish varg), the word for wolf, meant “outlaw”, and was also used in the sense of “murderer”, “slayer”, is telling of the way we routinely attribute human characteristics to wolves, and vice versa. To some extent the same can be said about the sheep, which traditionally symbolizes that which is to be protected, flock animals, and stupidity.

This paper will draw on semiotics, philosophy, and Human-Animal Studies at large.

Report from Animals & Philosophy roundtable by John Hadley published

John Hadley, who chaired the roundtable/stucy circle session "Animals & Philosophy" at Minding Animals 2 in Utrecht, the Netherlands last summer, has published a summary of that roundtable in the newsletter of the International Society for Environmental Ethics (ISEE). The report appears on pp. 37-38 of Vol. 23, No. 3 Winter 2012. I was the scribe of this roundtable.