Sir Michael Dummett, one of the most cherished British living philosophers, died at age 86 on December 27th. Dummett was most famous for his work in logic and philosophy of language. Several philosophically-minded obituaries have already been written. Here are - in no particular order - my favorite three, appeared in the Telegraph, the Opinionator at the New York Times online, the Guardian.

The second, exciting new is that CUNY distinguished professor Saul Kripke is out with a new book, Philosophical Troubles. Collected Papers, Volume 1. Regarded as one of the most influential contemporary American philosophers, before this new work Kripke had published only a dozen lengthy papers and two books, one of which - Naming and Necessity - collected a series of lectures he gave in Princeton in the early Seventies. Indeed, most of Kripke's manuscripts have so far never seen a press. Philosophical Troubles is the first volume of a series of collected papers, which includes both published and unpublished materials. With the support of the Saul Kripke Center, more volumes are scheduled for the coming years.

Along with authors such as Tim Ingold and James Gibson, I favor a metaphysics centered on an ecological perspective, where individuals do not play a central role, rather the features of an environment do. This position is confirmed also by less theoretically oriented writings. For instance, when speaking of the relationship between bees and apple trees, Michael Pollan remarks in the Botany of Desire that "the traditional distinction between subject and object is meaningless." ("Introduction": xiv)

Over the past few days, while I was reflecting on the distinctive aspects of the idea of the West and how these relate to liberalism and humanism, I was wondering what would happen to the West were an ecological perspective to prevail in the years to come. Can liberalism still be defended from an ecological perspective? How about the cognate core doctrines within humanism? What are the implications of an ecological perspective over capitalism, the attribution of individual rights and duties, and the very idea of democracy?

To address those questions may well end up on my New Year's resolutions list. Stay tuned for more on those topics in the weeks to come.

As New Year's approaches, we hurry up buying bottles to celebrate the new start. Of course it is hard to syncronize the opening gesture to the clock; but, in the end, it's all a bluff, isn't it? Is there really one exact moment in which we will enter 2012? Can we ever point our fingers, or even feel, an exact moment?

At the very origins of Ancient philosophy, Zeno of Elea used some paradoxes about time and space to prove that Being is one, as his teacher Parmenides had theorized. New Year's celebration would have been a great occasion to showcase his theory.

Each day is made out of twenty-four hours; each hour of sixty seconds; each second contains one thousand milliseconds ... As we descend the list of time units, our chances to measure (and, of course, feel) time changes become smaller and smaller. Is there really an exact moment in which the New Year's begin? If time is infinitely divisible, how is it possible that we ever move through time?

Some like to think - for good reasons, perhaps - that physics should indicate the way the world is. In theoretical physics, the smallest (theoretical, i.e. non measurable) unit of time is Plank time, that is the time it takes to light to travel (in a vacuum) one Planck length (1.616199(97)×10^-35 meters). Could it be that 2011 and 2012 are divided by one unit of Planck time?

While this may be the most scientifically sophisticated belief to have at the moment, it cannot be proved in practice, while its theoretical soundness still lies open to the scrutiny of fundamental physicists. So, perhaps Zeno and Parmenides may still be right in saying that there is only one Being and that change is only psychological. If you are a little late in opening that bottle at midnight, don't worry: it's always the right time to celebrate an illusion.

A rumor has been recurrently spreading around over the past decade, or even more: the financial crisis that is affecting capitalism around the globe these days seems to make some of Marx's prophecy regarding the fate of our economic structure come true.

What would have Marx said about the response offered so far by governments, investors, and citizens? Most likely he would not have been happy, as the answer so far suggested seems to be just more capitalism, while individual citizens are but spectators of a show that seems to be beyond their heads - and their wallets too.

Those who would like to get deeper into this intriguing subject, can find here a good list of online readings to start off. In the meantime, the question lays open: what if Marx was right?