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Jonathan Birch

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Jonathan Birch is a British philosopher and professor of philosophy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His… more

Jonathan Birch
H-index: 31
Neuroscience 26%
Psychology 15%
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Reposted by: Jonathan Birch, Evan Roberts

michaelhobbes.bsky.social
It's so incredible how low homicide rates are in Europe. The UK, with a population of 70 million people, had fewer than 600 murders in 2023.
www.connexionfrance.com/news/double-...
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by Jonathan Birch

by Jonathan Birch

Reposted by: Jonathan Birch

triphilosophy.bsky.social
"The Edge of Sentience: Risk and Precaution in Humans, Other Animals, and AI" by @birchlse.bsky.social (published by @oxunipress.bsky.social) has been shortlisted for the Nayef Al-Rodhan International Prize in Transdisciplinary Philosophy.

Learn more: royalinstitutephilosophy.org/news/shortli...
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Reposted by: Jonathan Birch

Reposted by: Jonathan Birch

by Jonathan Birch

birchlse.bsky.social
Critics of Gandhi too often mix genuine political disagreement with sexual innuendo and rumour. The disagreements with Ambedkar were verifiably real, and it's tragic that they shared the same aim (liberation of Dalits) and yet disagreed so deeply about the means.
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by Jonathan Birch

birchlse.bsky.social
I don't think the idea of Gandhi as defender of the status quo can be at all reconciled with "Caste Must Go". There is clearly a challenge to the status quo, and one can debate whether it is radical enough.

by Jonathan Birch

birchlse.bsky.social
You're already aware that he defended a deeply heterodox, anti-caste, anti-hierarchical version of the varna, so all that remains is a difference of emphasis - does one emphasise his radical heterodoxy or his failure to go even further.
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Reposted by: Jonathan Birch

by Jonathan Birch

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Reposted by: Jonathan Birch

crookedfootball.bsky.social
Oh God, not this again. The use of -ize rather than -ise does not mark a US/British English divide. Standard Oxford is -ize for example. There's a whole Inspector Morse episode about this. Expected better from the FT
Why I welcome Americanisation. Sorry, Americanization
News of the British Museum’s fundraising gala smacks of the sort of imitation and assimilation we’re good at
www.ft.com
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by Jonathan Birch — Reposted by: Jonathan Birch

by Jonathan Birch — Reposted by: Jonathan Birch, James Connelly

birchlse.bsky.social
What a great responsibility and a great privilege to be directing the world's first Centre for Animal Sentience. Many thanks to the ~300 in the room and ~500 online who attended our launch event. Wonderful to have you there on Day 1. www.lse.ac.uk/philosophy/s...
Launch event of the Jeremy Coller Centre for Animal Sentience, LSE
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by Jonathan Birch

birchlse.bsky.social
He held racist views in the early 1900s but had moved beyond them by 1908, and opposed racism for the next 40 years. (sahistory.org.za/archive/some...). Sexually, he was celibate/asexual from his late '30s. (I'm aware of some claims otherwise from some biographers, which I think are wrong.)
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by Jonathan Birch

birchlse.bsky.social
From 1935 onwards - "Caste Must Go" - I think it's impossible to read him as a defender of caste. Even before 1935, he never allowed it in his own communities. His campaigns focused on ending "untouchability" but that doesn't mean he truly supported the rest. archive.org/details/cast...
Caste Must Go and the Sin of Untouchability : Gandhi, Mahatma : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
iv, 108 pages 18 cm
archive.org
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by Jonathan Birch

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by Jonathan Birch

by Jonathan Birch

birchlse.bsky.social
He held racist views in the early 1900s but had moved beyond them by 1908, and opposed racism for the next 40 years. (A source on this: sahistory.org.za/archive/some...).
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by Jonathan Birch

birchlse.bsky.social
Gandhi campaigned against "untouchability" for around 30 years. He fell out with Ambedkar, very sadly, but was at no point a defender of caste-based oppression. (A source on this: janataweekly.org/gandhis-appr...)
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Reposted by: Jonathan Birch

francesegan.bsky.social
Shamelessly promoting my favorite paper. Everybody who was anybody in the history of science/philosophy/mathematics had a view on the moon illusion. frances-egan.org/uploads/3/5/...
frances-egan.org
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Reposted by: Jonathan Birch

Reposted by: Jonathan Birch

Reposted by: Jonathan Birch

impractknow.bsky.social
You might like this on the role of spinning in Gandhi's political philosophy muse.jhu.edu/pub/56/artic...
Project MUSE - Gandhi’s Spinning Wheel: The Charkha and Its Regenerative Effects
muse.jhu.edu
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by Jonathan Birch — Reposted by: Jonathan Birch

birchlse.bsky.social
Many commentators celebrate Gandhi's political campaigns but downplay his broader nonviolent philosophy. I think it's more relevant today than ever. We see now that Gandhi's critique of capitalism and industrialization was not misplaced. We do need new ways of life - and the freedom to experiment.
Gandhi in 1906, three years after founding Phoenix Settlement in South Africa in 1903.
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by Jonathan Birch

birchlse.bsky.social
India after independence went in a very different direction. Courageous experiments in nonviolent self-sufficiency do still go on (notably the Sarvodaya movement in Sri Lanka and Auroville in India) but the Gandhian dream of a scaleable model of self-sufficient village life remains elusive. (7/8)
Aerial view of the Matrimandir in Auroville, Tamil Nadu, India.
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by Jonathan Birch

birchlse.bsky.social
What future did he want? He saw in India's 700,000 villages an incubator of new ways of life. He wanted "gram swaraj", "village self-rule": every village aiming for nonviolent self-sufficiency in its own way, free to experiment autonomously. Perhaps his boldest and most important idea. (6/8)
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by Jonathan Birch

birchlse.bsky.social
But any campaign, to be a foundation for a future nonviolent way of life, must itself be nonviolent - so Gandhi's commitment to nonviolence was never conditional or pragmatic. He believed a violent campaign would lead to a future society not worth creating. (5/8)
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by Jonathan Birch

birchlse.bsky.social
Yet colonialism denied him the basic freedoms any such experiment requires. Freedom of movement, freedom of expression, freedom to grow and keep your own food, even freedom to make your own salt. He gradually realised colonialism must end before true experimentation with nonviolence can begin. (4/8)
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by Jonathan Birch

birchlse.bsky.social
Gandhi experimented four times with vegan diets, including a fruitarian phase eating only "fruits, nuts, seeds and olive oil", calling it "one of the greatest experiments of my life". Each time he got ill. He longed for "a vegetable substitute for milk which is equally nourishing and digestible".
Gandhi asks readers of his autobiography to send him suggestions of a vegetable substitute for milk.
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