Providing a platform for my written work.
Being and Place is an interdisciplinary research project which spans a number of subject areas a view to uniting the two great wings of moral, philosophical, and scientific thought: contemplation and action, objectivity and subjectivity, theoretical reason (the realm of science, fact) and practical reason (the realm of politics, ethics, artifice, will, visions, and values). Being and Place weaves the various subject disciplines into a coherent worldview in an attempt to counteract the baneful effects of academic specialisation and metaphysical fragmentation.
Rationale and Links
I established the Being and Place project in 2006 with a view to developing an integral philosophy for living. I combine extensive research and intensive reading across the various subject disciplines. The approach is founded on a deep interdisciplinarity, ranging widely whilst weaving specialist knowledge through its interconnection. I have specialist knowledge in the fields of philosophy, history, economics, ethics, ecology, the urban environment, literature, and theology. Seeing the world as an interconnected whole, I weave materials from all of these disciplines together to form one coherent whole. The result is an integral approach to a multidimensional reality.
Being and Place was designed with the express purpose of building bridges between the scientific, social, and cultural disciplines, integrating materials holistically without losing specialist depth. Without specific details, the whole is vacuous; without relation to the whole, the details are inert and incomplete. Combining breadth and depth, the approach seeks to counteract the increasing fragmentation of knowledge in the contemporary world by way of integration within a coherent and – one hopes – cogent worldview. Thinking beyond the boundaries, the hope of the integral vision presented by Being and Place is to inspire an action that is attuned to the links and connections comprising the one world within which we all dwell. The end goal is a truly human society of human beings rooted and settled in a place they can call their own, a being and place that counteracts the inhumanism and displacement that is now upon us.
The scope of the research is extensive but the idea is clear and concerns the connection between being and place, the moral meaning that human beings invest in the world around them as the rational evolution of the human ontology. The central theme is that of cities, citizenship, and civilisation as the mutual unfolding of nature within and nature without, affirming the unity of human beings in society and of society and nature. The research examines philosophical conceptions of freedom, security, reason and power from classical origins to the present day in order to define the public realm as the appropriate habitat for human self-realisation. The research incorporates evolutionary biology, psychology, anthropology and ecology within a socio-philosophical perspective in order to make the progress of rationalisation responsible to moral values and conscious social control.
Links to sites on which I present my work (there will be a 10 second delay as you are redirected, to ensure safety):
Amazon Author Platform - Links to my publications
Writing Voice - social media page offering detailed descriptions of each book.
Being and Place - blog containing essays and links.
Irreducibly Polynomial - my writings on autism, combining an inner and outer expertise.
Books
My Books: 1995-2025
Details in the links above
ECONOMICS
Europe and the Corporate Restructuring of the Global Political Economy: Volume 1: Whither Capitalism? The Social Market, the Liberal Market, and Beyond. 1995.
Europe and the Corporate Restructuring of the Global Political Economy. Vol 2. Globalisation and the Corporate Form. 1995.
The Economics of Flourishing Well 2016.
PHILOSOPHY
Spinoza and the Rule of Reason: An Introduction to Spinoza’s Philosophy of Freedom. 2007.
The Rational Moral Freedom of Immanuel Kant. 2007.
Philosophising through the Eye of the Mind. 2010.
An Introduction to the Philosophy of Immanuel Kant. 2011.
Immanence, Transcendence, and Essence. 2013.
Aquinas, Morality, and Modernity: The Promise of the Natural Moral Law. 2013.
Morality, Sociality, and Modernity: The Quest for Meaning and Belonging. 2018.
The Ecology of Good. 2020.
Rational Freedom. 2024.
Visions, Values, and Virtues: Philosophical Essays. 2024.
After Modernity: Del Noce, Weil, and MacIntyre: The Virtues of Place and Practice in Light of Transcendence. 2025.
CITY STUDIES - HUMAN GEOGRAPHY
Restructuring the City: Regeneration and the Meta-Narrative of the Good City. 2003.
The City of Reason. Vol 1. The Philosophical Ideal of the City. 2004.
The City of Reason. Vol 2. The Rationalisation of the City. 2004.
The City of Reason. Vol 3. The Political Economy of the City. 2004.
The City of Reason. Vol 4. The Social Ecology of the City. 2004.
Public Knowledge and Public Service in the Information Age: The Future for the Public Library. 2005.
Lewis Mumford and the Recovery of Place, Person, and Proximity. 2023.
From Power to Plenitude: Lewis Mumford: A Vision to Live By. 2025.
LITERATURE
William Blake: Life’s Sweet Delight. 2016.
J.R.R. Tolkien: Tales for Our Times. Vol 1. Art, Not Power. 2023.
J.R.R. Tolkien: Tales for Our Times. Vol 2. Fellowship and Flourishing. 2023.
Ecopoetics. 2024.
Dante’s Sweet Symphony of Paradise. Vol.1. The Political Peace. 2024.
Dante’s Sweet Symphony of Paradise. Vol.2. The Comedy: Exile and Homecoming. 2024.
Dante’s Sweet Symphony of Paradise. Vol.3. The Metaphysics of Music: Dante’s Musical Model. 2024.
Dante’s Sweet Symphony of Paradise. Vol.4. Dante’s Transcendent Enlightenment. 2024.
Dante’s Sweet Symphony of Paradise. Vol.5. Dante’s Enamoured Mind. 2024.
Dante’s Sweet Symphony of Paradise. Vol.6. Dante Dialogues. 2024.
ECOLOGY
Heaven's Performance: Eros, Thanatos, and the Eternal Fountain. 2011.
The Coming Ecological Revolution. 2011.
Of Gods and Gaia: Men as Gods Gambling with Gaia. 2012.
Towards Ecopolis: Ecology as Politics. 2015.
Being at One: vol. 1 Making a Home in Earth’s Commonwealth of Virtue. 2016.
Being at One: Vol. 2 Spiritual Ecology. 2016.
Re-inheriting the Disinherited Life: Towards a Philosophy of the Environment. 2016.
Ecological Humanism. 2016.
Being and Place: The Dialectics of Catastrophe and Hope. 2019.
Dialectical Ecology. 2020.
The Politics of Hope against the Ecology of Fear: To Build the House of Being and Belonging. 2021.
The Critique of Eco-Authoritarianism: Revaluing Democracy In Face Of Climate Necessity. 2022.
Environmental Science, Politics, and Practical Reason. 2022.
The Critique of Environmentalism: Nature Fetishism and the Case for Metaphysical Reconstruction. 2023.
Sensible Transcendence: Cultivating a Morality of the Senses. 2023.
POLITICS
The Proletarian Public: Order and Autonomy: The Principle and Practice of Proletarian Self-Emancipation. 1996.
An Introduction to the Thought of István Mészáros. 2018.
Regaining Democracy: The Critique of Techno-Bureaucratic Managerialism. 2020.
Revaluing Labour, Rebuilding Jerusalem. 2023.
Recovering the Principles of Republican Virtue. Vol. 1: Essays in Republican Virtue. 2024.
Beyond Cultural Libertarianism. Vol 2: Essays in Republican Virtue. 2024.
Liberalism, Socialism, and Conservatism Against the Coming Technology. Vol.3: Essays in Republican Virtue. 2024.
The Work of Reconstruction. Vol. 4: Essays in Republican Virtue. 2024.
The New Class Struggle. 2025.
The War on the People. 2025.
MARX
Marx, Materialist Dialectics, and Praxis. Vol 1. Beyond Modernity and Postmodernity. 1997.
Marx, Materialist Dialectics, and Praxis. Vol 2. Dialectical Realism and Active Materialism. 1997.
Marx, Materialist Dialectics, and Praxis. Vol 3. The Critique of Alien Control. 1997.
Marx, Materialist Dialectics, and Praxis. Vol 4. The Recovery of the Political: Socialism as the Social Republic. 1997.
Marx and the Idea of Rational Freedom. 2001.
Marx, Rational Freedom, and the Good Society: Vol 1. The Philosophy and Politics of Rational Freedom. 2002.
Marx, Rational Freedom, and the Good Society: Vol 2. Active Materialism – The Ontology of Reason. 2002.
Marx, Rational Freedom, and the Good Society: Vol 3. The Politics and Economics of the Self-Governing Society. 2002.
Social Restitution and Metabolic Restoration in the Thought of Karl Marx. 2018.
Ethics, Essence, and Immanence. 2018.
God, Reason, and Reality: Marx and Homo Religiosus. 2018.
RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY
Essays on Faith, Reason, and Reality. 2024.
Peace, Love, and Understanding. 2024.
Being Thankful, Expressing Joy: Essays on Living. 2024.
The Dialectic of Religion and Religiosity. 2024.
The Quest for Meaning. 2016.
Miscellaneous - Autobiographical, 'special interests'
Irreducibly Polynomial: Analects for an Autistobiography. 2024.
How the Web Was Woven: Essays in Celebration of Elvis Presley, Heart Singer. 2024.
A Guide to the Eurovision Song Contest. 2024.
I call my page ‘Writing Voice’ for the reason that the written word has been my principal way of communicating with the world, grace of an autism that was undiagnosed until 2021. Autism involves a different way of thinking and processing information, and it is through writing that I have brought my unique insights to bear on the world. I read extensively and intensively – and it is through writing that I found my voice. The photo on the right is my desk, showing my handwritten work.
I therefore attempt to do two things with Writing Voice:
- Advance the philosophy of Being and Place as a philosophy for living well together;
- Promote autism awareness and acceptance.
I am a defender of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful, an advocate of rational freedom founded upon the natural law, and a believer in the common moral reason (a quality possessed by each and all).
My research proceeds within a normative philosophical anthropology that is concerned with establishing the conditions for human and planetary flourishing, sustaining the 'happy habitus' in which the moral and intellectual virtues can be known, acquired, internalised, and exercised, thus enabling the living of the good life. A lofty ambition in these dark times. But it is possible - 'all life is on our side .. and has been since the very beginning, slow though we have been to realize this fact' (Lewis Mumford).
My work explores the possibility that solidarity, hitherto confined within the abstract state sphere, can come to take the form of a self-socialisation from below, creating and sustaining a culture that fosters human connection in face of profound social division within and remote control without.
I can be contacted through the websites listed above.
