This small committee was set up to subserve the Middle Way Society’s publishing imprint, which supports authors wishing to publish books relating to the Middle Way. When granted, the imprint will indicate the Society’s approval of the book concerned, and will provide the reader with a basic guarantee of quality, relevance and interest.
The imprint will be sanctioned by the Middle Way Society after due consideration, and subsequent approval, by the publications committee, to whose members manuscripts will be referred for assessment, and an initial judgement made on them. Assessment criteria include a reasonable quality of English, of presentation, and readability ; the work’s relevance to the Middle Way; and the book’s contribution to communicating the Middle Way.
The Society’s assessors will act in a supportive, consultative and collaborative way with intending authors. They are responsible to the Annual General Meeting. When the work of a member of the committee is under consideration, that member will not attend the meeting nor take part in the decision-making on their own work.
Intending authors (who wish to obtain the imprint) should approach the Society’s chairman Robert M Ellis at an appropriately early stage of authoring to discuss their intentions, and to get more complete information on what is entailed.
Are there plans to make volumes 3 and 4 of the Middle Way Philosophy books available in e-book form? I buy very few books in traditional print format because of significant osteoarthritis in my hands. I already own all of Mr Ellis’s other books that available in e-book form.
Dear Steven
Thanks for your interest in Dr Ellis’s books and your question about e-book versions of Volumes 3 and 4. Robert is presently on retreat but he will certainly deal with your query on his return, I hope to your satisfaction.
Peter (Goble)
MWS Secretary and Publications Committee member
Hi Steven,
Sorry about the non-appearance of volumes 3 and 4 in e-book form. The fact is that I have had quite a few technical hassles in converting books to e-book form, so I have a certain resistance to going through the process! However, having a definite request from you will help provide an incentive.
My plan now is to make a revision of volume 1 (to bring it more fully into line with the other volumes), and then to create an ‘omnibus’ edition of all the volumes together, which may only appear in e-book form (if it does appear in print, it will be rather expensive, so I’d expect the e-book to be a better option). Hopefully I’ll manage that within the next few months, but I have quite a few projects under way at the moment and various demands on my time. In the meantime, though, I could email you pdfs of volumes 3 and 4, if that would be helpful?
I am aware there are many technical hassles involved in e-book publishing. I wish I could be of some assistance, but I have no skills in that area. The books you have written need to be in e-book form. Thanks for your offer to send me PDF’s of Volumes 3 and 4 and I will take you up on that. I do plan on joining the Society in the very near future.
Hi, I’d be very interested to know how much alignment or overlap you think there is between your philosophy and approach and the synthesis I have created on my website which I describe as holistic political economy.
Hi Brian, On a quick look over, I’d say that there is plenty of alignment based on your use of systems theory. I’ve yet to find anything very distinctive that I haven’t found in other systems theory sources, but maybe I haven’t looked hard enough. What would you say is your key new point or idea?
As regards the relationship to the Middle Way, it needs to be noted that the Middle Way isn’t just an application of systems theory. It focuses on individual judgement and how to balance that judgement so as to avoid absolutisations. Understanding our universe in terms of systems rather than in terms of determinate objects is one good approach to avoiding absolutisation, but not the only way. We focus on the process of judgement rather than just the objects of judgement. Middle Way Philosophy also draws a lot on psychology, sceptical/pragmatic philosophy, and the perspective offered by practices such as mindfulness. If you wanted your work to be considered by the publications committee, I think it would need to make more explicit use of the concept of the Middle Way, and be rather more broadly based so as not to depend only on systems theory.
That’s based only on a quick look-over, so I’m happy to follow up with more dialogue if you think I’ve got it wrong.
Robert, thanks for your comments.
My essential points are as follows
– what we, collectively know from science, is out of fit with the politician economy we have . By this I mean that cooperation drives evolution, we are social etc., but looking at Political Economy and the way it is justified you find thinly disguised social Darwinism
– one of the things we now know is that human behaviour is not entirely fixed. Of course there is our physiology and animal inheritance but we also observe brain plasticity & physical changes from experience, on top of this there the evidence that people respond to cultural norms
– I hypothesise that because of the above to some of our behaviour is best though of an emergent property of the entirety of the human activity system
– given that this system includes the human constructmasociated with culture it would be sensible tonwe should try and create a political economy that reflects our sociability and for want of a better way of putting it, brings out what may be described as our better behaviours
By concentrating on what I call the political implications of this I conclude that
– the task for activists is to reimagine a world that is based on widespread cooperation and to design institutions which will encourage the emergence of better behaviour
– the individual activist has to take a conceptual leap away from the metaphors of conflict and war, the tribalism of party and reach out to both those who are in the choir and those who apparently disagree
I am conscious of the value proposition in use of better and try to link the ideas to the minimum common denominator of ethical behaviour – something akin to the golden rule.
I am conciousnofnneed to engage with power and resistance and develop ideas for action that are practical.
I claim no originality – except in the breadth of the synthesis and making the since the environment includes human constructs
I wan not pitching an article but could see onenemerging from the outline above, middle way approaches help prepare one for such a different approach to bringing about political change.
Once again thank you for taking the time to respond
Brian.
Sorry it got mangled at the end