The American Environmental Justice Movement The origin of the American environmental justice movement can be traced back to the emergence of the American Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, and more specifically to the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964.  The movement reached a new level with the emergence of Robert Bullard’s work entitled Dumping in Dixie in the 1990’s, which constituted a clarion call

Jean Bodin (c. 1529—1596) The humanist philosopher and jurist Jean Bodin was one of the most prominent political thinkers of the sixteenth century. His reputation is largely based on his account of sovereignty which he formulated in the Six Books of the Commonwealth. Bodin lived at a time of great upheaval, when France was ravaged by the wars of religion between the Catholics and the

Jean Paul Sartre: Existentialism The philosophical career of Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980) focuses, in its first phase, upon the construction of a philosophy of existence known as existentialism. Sartre’s early works are characterized by a development of classic phenomenology, but his reflection diverges from Husserl’s on methodology, the conception of the self, and an interest in ethics. These points of divergence are the cornerstones of

Pierre Bayle (1647–1706) Pierre Bayle was a seventeenth-century French skeptical philosopher and historian.  He is best known for his encyclopedic work The Historical and Critical Dictionary (1697, 1st edition; 1702, 2nd edition), a work which was widely influential on eighteenth-century figures such as Voltaire and Thomas Jefferson.  Bayle is traditionally described as a skeptic, though the nature and extent of his skepticism remains hotly debated. 

Pacifism Pacifism is the theory that peaceful rather than violent or belligerent relations should govern human intercourse and that arbitration, surrender, or migration should be used to resolve disputes. Pacifism is as much an element of Western thinking as is the notion of Just War Theory, the argument that the state may legitimately or morally bear arms. While most people accept the necessity of war,