Lewis Williams
Biographic Data
| ID | 3951013 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Lewis Williams |
| GIVEN NAMES | Lewis |
| FAMILY NAME | Williams |
| SIGNATURE | WILLIAMS L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Saskatchewan |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1172-726X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 28 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Normative Nihilism
Normative nihilism is the more radical sibling of moral nihilism: while moral nihilists are nihilists only about the moral domain, normative nihilists are nihilists about all normativity. For example, normative nihilists have argued that there are no moral, prudential, epistemic, or instrumental reasons. This is a prima facie highly implausible view. But normative nihilism has received serious defence. Proponents argue that normative nihilism is …
Beyond Normativity
Recent years have seen a growing number of philosophers come to defend normative nihilism. Even if their arguments do not induce in many a belief in normative nihilism, there may be grounds on which to be less than certain about the falsity of normative nihilism. How, then, can we accommodate the possibility of normative nihilism when deliberating about what to do? In this article, I defend two theses. First, I distinguish between normative quest…
Revolutionary Normative Subjectivism
The what next question for moral error theorists asks: if moral discourse is systematically error-ridden, then how, if at all, should moral error theorists continue to employ moral discourse? Recent years have seen growing numbers of moral error theorists come to endorse a wider normative error theory according to which all normative judgements are untrue. But despite this shift, the what next question for normative error theorists has received f…
As we have always done: Sharing Māori, Anishinaabe and Gàidheil responses to climate challenge
Indigenous peoples throughout the world are under considerable cultural and ecological pressure in the face of a rapidly warming world. While contexts and Indigenous knowledge systems are specific, there is much that can be learned from knowledge exchange and collaborations with other Indigenous communities. This article reports on a growing conversation across diverse cultural biospheres (Aotearoa New Zealand, Turtle Island, and Alba/Scotland) r…
From Indigenous philosophy in environmental education to Indigenous planetary futures: What would it take
The past two decades have seen a proliferation of Indigenous philosophy in environmental education. Much of this anti and decolonial work has made significant advances in deconstructing western modernist subjectivities; re-embedding and re-situating Indigenous and western relational epistemologies into human-earth relationality, including critical inquiry into questions of positionality, power-knowledge and human and more-than-human agency. Less …
Moral Nihilism—So What
Edward Elliott and Jessica Isserow argue that it is not usually in the best interests of ordinary human beings to learn the truth of moral nihilism. According to Elliott and Isserow, ordinary human beings would suffer costs from learning the truth of moral nihilism that are unlikely to be fully compensated for by any benefits. Here I provide reasons to doubt that ordinary human beings would suffer costs from learning the truth of moral nihilism a…
Pseudoexfoliation and Cataract Syndrome Associated with Genetic and Epidemiological Factors in a Mayan Cohort of Guatemala
The Mayan population of Guatemala is understudied within eye and vision research. Studying an observational homogenous, geographically isolated population of individuals seeking eye care may identify unique clinical, demographic, environmental and genetic risk factors for blinding eye disease that can inform targeted and effective screening strategies to achieve better and improved health care distribution. This study served to: (a) identify the …
Indigenous Intergenerational Resilience: Confronting Cultural and Ecological Crisis
A radical revision of the public health response to environmental crisis in a warming world: Contributions of Indigenous knowledges and Indigenous feminist perspectives
Indigenous peoples have long been successful at adapting to climatic and environmental changes. However, anthropogenic climatic crisis represents an epoch of intensified colonialism which poses particular challenges to Indigenous peoples throughout the world, including those in wealthier ‘modern’ nation states. Indigenous peoples also possess worldviews and traditional knowledge systems that are critical to climate mitigation and adaptation, yet,…
Reshaping Colonial Subjectivities Through the Language of the Land
This paper focuses on the regenerative capacity of Indigenous languages to heal humanity's widespread disassociation from our earth. Decolonization is positioned as the collective work of reindigenization as this pertains both to Indigenous peoples and those who are no longer indigenous to place. In doing so, the paper elucidates the potential contribution of the Westernized field of ecopsychology, with its focus on the interrelationships between…
Climate change, colonialism, and women’s well-being in Canada: What is to be done
Empowerment and the ecological determinants of health: Three critical capacities for practitioners
Human agency or the expression of intentionality towards some form of betterment has long occupied human imagination and creativity. The ways in which we express such aspirations are fundamentally informed by our beliefs about the nature of reality, meanings of human well-being and progress, and the ways in which our social locations shape our interests. Within Western health-promoting discourse and practice, such processes have largely been expr…
A Global De-colonial Praxis of Sustainability - Undoing Epistemic Violences between Indigenous peoples and those no longer Indigenous to Place
Addressing our growing planetary crisis and attendant symptoms of human and human-ecological disconnect, requires a profound epistemological reorientation regarding how societal structures are conceived and articulated; named here as the collective work of decolonisation. While global dynamics are giving rise to vital transnational solidarities between Indigenous peoples, these same processes have also resulted in complex and often contradictory …
Women, migration and well-being: Building epistemological resilience through ontologies of wholeness and relationship
This paper offers some reflections on the contextual issues and approach to a social action research initiative, the Ecology of Well-being Project (EWBP), active in Canada and Aotearoa New Zealand, which seeks to address psycho-spiritual well-being among these communities. Specifically, it focuses on building epistemological resilience among these groups and, by extension, society at large, through adopting an Indigenous Life-World approach. This…
A generation of change, a lifetime of difference?: Social policy in Britain since 1979
A generation of change, a lifetime of difference?Social policy in Britain since 1979
This book addresses the historical development of social and fiscal policies from the late 1970s to the present day by asking what has changed, how these changes have affected the lifecourse and what the potential lifetime impacts of policy change are. This book provides an overview of the development of policy change over the period and uses an innovative and unique lifetime approach ‘from the cradle to the grave’ to put it into perspective. The…
Empowerment for migrant communities: Paradoxes for practitioners
A common aim of health and human service programmes is to improve the health status of marginalized groups. One such group is new migrants. This paper summarizes the results of a three-year study of a health and empowerment initiative undertaken with a low-income migrant community in Aotearoa/New Zealand (A/NZ), with subsequent interviews with community workers engaged with such communities in A/NZ and Canada, a country known for its open migrati…
Alphabétisation fondée sur la culture et santé des Autochtones
Pollen, Phytoliths and Diatoms in Prehistoric Coprolites from Kohika, Bay of Plenty, New Zealand
Pollen, Phytoliths and Diatoms in Prehistoric Coprolites from Kohika, Bay of Plenty, New Zealand
Climate change, colonialism, and women’s well-being in Canada: What is to be done
A radical revision of the public health response to environmental crisis in a warming world: Contributions of Indigenous knowledges and Indigenous feminist perspectives
Indigenous peoples have long been successful at adapting to climatic and environmental changes. However, anthropogenic climatic crisis represents an epoch of intensified colonialism which poses particular challenges to Indigenous peoples throughout the world, including those in wealthier ‘modern’ nation states. Indigenous peoples also possess worldviews and traditional knowledge systems that are critical to climate mitigation and adaptation, yet,…
A Global De-colonial Praxis of Sustainability - Undoing Epistemic Violences between Indigenous peoples and those no longer Indigenous to Place
Addressing our growing planetary crisis and attendant symptoms of human and human-ecological disconnect, requires a profound epistemological reorientation regarding how societal structures are conceived and articulated; named here as the collective work of decolonisation. While global dynamics are giving rise to vital transnational solidarities between Indigenous peoples, these same processes have also resulted in complex and often contradictory …
Indigenous Intergenerational Resilience: Confronting Cultural and Ecological Crisis
Women, migration and well-being: Building epistemological resilience through ontologies of wholeness and relationship
This paper offers some reflections on the contextual issues and approach to a social action research initiative, the Ecology of Well-being Project (EWBP), active in Canada and Aotearoa New Zealand, which seeks to address psycho-spiritual well-being among these communities. Specifically, it focuses on building epistemological resilience among these groups and, by extension, society at large, through adopting an Indigenous Life-World approach. This…
Alphabétisation fondée sur la culture et santé des Autochtones
Pollen, Phytoliths and Diatoms in Prehistoric Coprolites from Kohika, Bay of Plenty, New Zealand
Alphabétisation fondée sur la culture et santé des Autochtones
Empowerment for migrant communities: Paradoxes for practitioners
A common aim of health and human service programmes is to improve the health status of marginalized groups. One such group is new migrants. This paper summarizes the results of a three-year study of a health and empowerment initiative undertaken with a low-income migrant community in Aotearoa/New Zealand (A/NZ), with subsequent interviews with community workers engaged with such communities in A/NZ and Canada, a country known for its open migrati…
A generation of change, a lifetime of difference?: Social policy in Britain since 1979
A generation of change, a lifetime of difference?Social policy in Britain since 1979
This book addresses the historical development of social and fiscal policies from the late 1970s to the present day by asking what has changed, how these changes have affected the lifecourse and what the potential lifetime impacts of policy change are. This book provides an overview of the development of policy change over the period and uses an innovative and unique lifetime approach ‘from the cradle to the grave’ to put it into perspective. The…
Women, migration and well-being: Building epistemological resilience through ontologies of wholeness and relationship
This paper offers some reflections on the contextual issues and approach to a social action research initiative, the Ecology of Well-being Project (EWBP), active in Canada and Aotearoa New Zealand, which seeks to address psycho-spiritual well-being among these communities. Specifically, it focuses on building epistemological resilience among these groups and, by extension, society at large, through adopting an Indigenous Life-World approach. This…
Empowerment and the ecological determinants of health: Three critical capacities for practitioners
Human agency or the expression of intentionality towards some form of betterment has long occupied human imagination and creativity. The ways in which we express such aspirations are fundamentally informed by our beliefs about the nature of reality, meanings of human well-being and progress, and the ways in which our social locations shape our interests. Within Western health-promoting discourse and practice, such processes have largely been expr…
A Global De-colonial Praxis of Sustainability - Undoing Epistemic Violences between Indigenous peoples and those no longer Indigenous to Place
Addressing our growing planetary crisis and attendant symptoms of human and human-ecological disconnect, requires a profound epistemological reorientation regarding how societal structures are conceived and articulated; named here as the collective work of decolonisation. While global dynamics are giving rise to vital transnational solidarities between Indigenous peoples, these same processes have also resulted in complex and often contradictory …
Climate change, colonialism, and women’s well-being in Canada: What is to be done
Reshaping Colonial Subjectivities Through the Language of the Land
This paper focuses on the regenerative capacity of Indigenous languages to heal humanity's widespread disassociation from our earth. Decolonization is positioned as the collective work of reindigenization as this pertains both to Indigenous peoples and those who are no longer indigenous to place. In doing so, the paper elucidates the potential contribution of the Westernized field of ecopsychology, with its focus on the interrelationships between…
A radical revision of the public health response to environmental crisis in a warming world: Contributions of Indigenous knowledges and Indigenous feminist perspectives
Indigenous peoples have long been successful at adapting to climatic and environmental changes. However, anthropogenic climatic crisis represents an epoch of intensified colonialism which poses particular challenges to Indigenous peoples throughout the world, including those in wealthier ‘modern’ nation states. Indigenous peoples also possess worldviews and traditional knowledge systems that are critical to climate mitigation and adaptation, yet,…
Pseudoexfoliation and Cataract Syndrome Associated with Genetic and Epidemiological Factors in a Mayan Cohort of Guatemala
The Mayan population of Guatemala is understudied within eye and vision research. Studying an observational homogenous, geographically isolated population of individuals seeking eye care may identify unique clinical, demographic, environmental and genetic risk factors for blinding eye disease that can inform targeted and effective screening strategies to achieve better and improved health care distribution. This study served to: (a) identify the …
Indigenous Intergenerational Resilience: Confronting Cultural and Ecological Crisis
From Indigenous philosophy in environmental education to Indigenous planetary futures: What would it take
The past two decades have seen a proliferation of Indigenous philosophy in environmental education. Much of this anti and decolonial work has made significant advances in deconstructing western modernist subjectivities; re-embedding and re-situating Indigenous and western relational epistemologies into human-earth relationality, including critical inquiry into questions of positionality, power-knowledge and human and more-than-human agency. Less …
Moral Nihilism—So What
Edward Elliott and Jessica Isserow argue that it is not usually in the best interests of ordinary human beings to learn the truth of moral nihilism. According to Elliott and Isserow, ordinary human beings would suffer costs from learning the truth of moral nihilism that are unlikely to be fully compensated for by any benefits. Here I provide reasons to doubt that ordinary human beings would suffer costs from learning the truth of moral nihilism a…
As we have always done: Sharing Māori, Anishinaabe and Gàidheil responses to climate challenge
Indigenous peoples throughout the world are under considerable cultural and ecological pressure in the face of a rapidly warming world. While contexts and Indigenous knowledge systems are specific, there is much that can be learned from knowledge exchange and collaborations with other Indigenous communities. This article reports on a growing conversation across diverse cultural biospheres (Aotearoa New Zealand, Turtle Island, and Alba/Scotland) r…
Normative Nihilism
Normative nihilism is the more radical sibling of moral nihilism: while moral nihilists are nihilists only about the moral domain, normative nihilists are nihilists about all normativity. For example, normative nihilists have argued that there are no moral, prudential, epistemic, or instrumental reasons. This is a prima facie highly implausible view. But normative nihilism has received serious defence. Proponents argue that normative nihilism is …
Beyond Normativity
Recent years have seen a growing number of philosophers come to defend normative nihilism. Even if their arguments do not induce in many a belief in normative nihilism, there may be grounds on which to be less than certain about the falsity of normative nihilism. How, then, can we accommodate the possibility of normative nihilism when deliberating about what to do? In this article, I defend two theses. First, I distinguish between normative quest…
Revolutionary Normative Subjectivism
The what next question for moral error theorists asks: if moral discourse is systematically error-ridden, then how, if at all, should moral error theorists continue to employ moral discourse? Recent years have seen growing numbers of moral error theorists come to endorse a wider normative error theory according to which all normative judgements are untrue. But despite this shift, the what next question for normative error theorists has received f…
Sociology (12 works) · Political science (11 works) · Ecology (6 works) · Environmental ethics (6 works) · Indigenous (6 works) · Epistemology (5 works) · Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights (5 works) · Indigenous Studies and Ecology (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Traditional knowledge (5 works)