This chapter contains sections titled: Gardens and Enchantment Dumbarton Oaks: A Fusion of Nature and Art? Dumbarton Oaks as a Site of Enchantment: Crossings, Complexity, and Circuits Cultivating Enchantment Notes.

Following the suggestion expressed in the title of this essay, I deal with the idea which allows for considering landscape garden as a paradigmatic indicator of our relationship with nature. Focusing on the idea of landscape garden and its aesthetics I analyze two aesthetic notions: the picturesque and sublime, which are the background of the kind of experience accompanying a perception and participation of and in the landscape and environment. I analyse the kind of experience, which captures all the (...) aspects that situate the human in the environment instead of opposing it. The analysis will be conducted within the framework of aesthetics. (shrink)

The continuum between nature and artefact is occupied by objects and environments that embody a relationship between natural processes and human activity. In this paper, I explore the relationship that emerges through human interaction with the land in the generation and aesthetic appreciation of industrial farming in contrast to more traditional agricultural practices. I consider the concept of a dialectical relationship and develop it in order to characterise the distinctive synthesising activity of humans and nature (...) which underlies cultivated environments. I argue that a more harmonious relationship, and greater aesthetic value, may be located within traditional farming landscapes. This position is supported and illustrated through a discussion of two agricultural practices in the UK, hedge-laying and stonewalling. (shrink)

It is a commonplace that the modern world cannot be experienced as enchanted--that the very concept of enchantment belongs to past ages of superstition. Jane Bennett challenges that view. She seeks to rehabilitate enchantment, showing not only how it is still possible to experience genuine wonder, but how such experience is crucial to motivating ethical behavior. A creative blend of political theory, philosophy, and literary studies, this book is a powerful and innovative contribution to an emerging interdisciplinary conversation (...) about the deep connections between ethics, aesthetics, and politics. As Bennett describes it, enchantment is a sense of openness to the unusual, the captivating, and the disturbing in everyday life. She guides us through a wide and often surprising range of sources of enchantment, showing that we can still find enchantment in nature, for example, but also in such unexpected places as modern technology, advertising, and even bureaucracy. She then explains how everyday moments of enchantment can be cultivated to build an ethics of generosity, stimulating the emotional energy and honing the perceptual refinement necessary to follow moral codes. Throughout, Bennett draws on thinkers and writers as diverse as Kant, Schiller, Thoreau, Kafka, Marx, Weber, Adorno, and Deleuze. With its range and daring, The Enchantment of Modern Life is a provocative challenge to the centuries-old ''narrative of disenchantment,'' one that presents a new ''alter-tale'' that discloses our profound attachment to the human and nonhuman world. (shrink)

The Totonac homegarden is a traditionally designed agroecosystem mixing different elements, such as cultivated and wild plants, and livestock. Our objective was to understand the role and importance of homegardens as a strategy for subsistence and natural resources management. Anthropological fieldwork was carried out in Coxquihui, Veracruz, Mexico, a Totonac community. Conventional sampling using a questionnaire yielded a sample of 40 individuals, each representing a family group. Personal interviews, life stories, observations, and field transects enriched survey information. Fieldwork permitted identification (...) of four types of Totonac homegardens: backyards, cropping fields, acahuales or fallow fields, and fences or field edges. Each of these gardens yields an array of products and services important for several cultural roles and natural resource management aims. Totonacs see land as the dominant and most critical resource. A great deal of terrain is steeply sloped and soils are poor. Homegardens play a key role in a production system that minimizes these site limitations, striking a balance between resource maintenance and subsistence needs. Their functions are ecological, to foster a multistrata vegetation cover, and a continuous supply of organic matter to the soil; economic, serving as living storehouses where diverse products (food, timber, firewood, forage, animals, ceremonial supplies, medicinal products), are kept through the annual cycle; and social, performing various social roles such as growing medicinal, ritual, and edible plants, thus supporting beliefs and culture continuity. Studies like this contribute to a better understanding of Totonac culture and native ecology, and give ideas for a better land management. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Mencius and Xunzi between Humaneness and JusticeSungmoon Kim (bio)In his now classic Disputers of the Tao (1989), A. C. Graham aptly captured the central feature of the ancient Chinese world of thought in terms of the dispute about the Way between competing philosophical schools. But it has since long remained an intellectual challenge how to understand and evaluate the unfolding of the philosophical schools in ancient China (...) [End Page 439] coherently from a philosophical standpoint. Tao Jiang's Origins of Moral-Political Philosophy in Early China attempts to meet this long overdue challenge, and it does so admirably with philological rigor and philosophical insight.What is central to Jiang's framework is the conceptual tripod of humaneness, justice, and personal freedom, which he generally understands as "the moral norm that is agent/recipient relative" (especially, natural inclinations toward one's family/kin members), "impartial judgment on the merits of persons and states of affairs," and "the appreciation and cultivation of personal space where one can be left alone … without [being] entangled in the sociopolitical world," respectively.1 Jiang begins with Confucius by presenting him as the first major thinker in Chinese history who wrestled with the tension between humaneness and justice. According to Jiang, Confucius' seminal idea of impartial justice was critically re-appropriated by the Mohists, who advocated "impartial care" (jian ai 兼愛), while his idea of partial humaneness was later developed by Mencius, who upheld "familial virtues" as the pivot of Confucian morality and politics—although, as will be discussed shortly, this represents only one dimension of Mencius' philosophical system. Jiang understands the later development of the Laoist, the fajia ist (commonly known as "Legalist"), and the Zhuangist thoughts, largely as critical responses to the Confucian (especially the Mencian) argument for partial humaneness and the congruity between the familial and the political by naturalizing Heaven (thereby decoupling the political from the familial), developing an objective political system independent of the ruler's moral virtue, and insulating private persons from human relationality and the intervention of the state. Finally, Jiang argues that while Han Feizi's political thought presents the culmination of the early Chinese concern with impartial justice, Xunzi reformulated Confucianism by synthesizing humaneness and justice.I find Tao Jiang's overall argument, buttressed by extensive philological examinations, well-structured and penetrating, and I have no doubt that this book will make an important contribution to Chinese moral and political philosophy. Like many great books, however, Jiang's book makes numerous novel yet controversial claims, and this review aims to engage with several key questions Jiang raises with regard to Mencius and Xunzi, the two giants of classical Confucianism.The Two Strands of Mencius?In interpreting Mencius, Tao Jiang's core argument is that there is "a deep tension at the heart of the Mencian system."2 This tension, according to Jiang, rises from the two incompatible strands in Mencian thought, the "extensionist" strand and the "sacrificialist" strand: [End Page 440][W]hile the extensionist Mencius operates on the assumption, normative within Confucianism, of congruity between the personal, the familial, and the political domains, the sacrificialist Mencius recognizes a tension between the familial and the political that can be hard to reconcile or even irreconcilable under certain circumstances. Furthermore, the sacrificialist Mencius radically separates the familial from the political and ultimately prioritizes the former over the latter, by embracing the necessity for sacrifice as a way that, at times, is required to save the familial.3The extensionist Mencius presents the normative (i.e., partial humane) strand of Confucianism, which stipulates the seamless continuity between the personal, the familial, and the political, as best demonstrated in Mencius' statement that "the root of the world lies in the state; the root of the state lies in the family; the root of the family lies in oneself."4 That is, the extensionist strand of Mencius highlights the transformative force of moral self-cultivation that achieves the unity between the inner self and the outer world through the Heaven-decreed human nature, thus denying the categorial separations between ethics and politics, between moral virtue and political virtue, and between private and public. In Jiang's view, the extensionist strand captures... (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Candide Hume and Common Life Gardens and Tranquility Notes.

This introduction provides an overview to a special issue on Critical Healing, which draws on queer theory, disability studies, postcolonial theory, and literary studies to theorize productive engagements between the clinical and cultural aspects of biomedical knowledge and practice. The essays in this issue historicize and theorize diagnosis, particularly diagnosis that impacts trans health and sexuality, homosexuality, and HIV/AIDS transmission. The essays also address racialization, disability, and colonialism through discussions of fiction, film, theoretical memoir, and comics, as well as (...) biomedical discourse and knowledge. (shrink)

This paper examines the ancient Judeo-Christian worldview to provide a link between individual and societal attitudes and sustainable human welfare. This “moral ecology” links the welfare of the entire created order to human justice, or right living. Environmental degradation, poverty, and oppression all stem from humans grasping for control. To examine how these attitudes may affect material human welfare the paper develops the concept of natural systems as natural multiproduct factories, showing how they interact with other productive resources (...) to improve human material well-being. Maintaining or increasing such well-being depends upon creating a balance between these natural factories and human-derived inputs within a spatial context. Achieving balance, as well as overall human welfare, is shown ultimately to depend upon the attitudes of people toward one another and toward the rest of creation, indicating that the basic Hebrew perspective under girding western civilization has much to offer as a frame of analysis. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Education as Gardening: An Image of Natural Growth Do We All Possess Fertile Souls? The Gardener: What is His Contribution to the Growth of the Seeds? Gardening: Labor and Reward Plato as Gardener Dialogue Between Text and Reader: Cultivating the Seeds Teaching Us to Become Gardeners of Our Souls Plato's Literary Garden: A Corpus of Works Gardeners of Souls Notes.

This book surveys the distinctions that underlie the unbound potential and existential risks of life expansion and radical modifications posed by a transhuman world. Humanness is in flux as human bodies are being hacked and altered in their quest for super wellness, super intelligence and super longevity. Now is the time to discuss how best to think about dealing with bodies that have been hacked to exceed natural physical limits or more technically, species typical functioning. Enter the advent of transhumanism (...) to take uncertainty by the horns. According to transhumanists, death is unnecessary and medical conventions undermine the possibility to radically evolve. To biohackers, there is no need to wait to explore the risks that conventional medicine dares not. This book is of interest to anyone interested in tapping into this growing movement of modifying the human body as it is right now. (shrink)

The possibility of dialogue between human beings and nature has been a subject of controversy with fundamental interpretations and reinterpretations among philosophers. Some have argued that the idea of human–nature dialogue is ill-informed, absurd and misleading because humans and non-humans lack the capacity for mutual linguistic understanding and reciprocity. This paper argues otherwise, by appropriating Marie Pauline Eboh’s concept of “Ecogynism as Unspoken Dialogue” to analytically show the dialogical possibility between human beings and (...) class='Hi'>nature. Ecogynism is considered as an approach and method towards the consideration of a new form of dialogue with a view to achieving friendly and harmonious synthesis of existence, and proffering solutions to natural disasters and issues relating to environmental sustainability. However, the form of dialogue accentuated in this article is not akin to conversation or discussion that requires an exchange of views, but an unspoken dialogue that is based on meta-epistemic and existential modes of communication, sensibility, and interaction, to reveal the natural interrelatedness and mutuality of all existents and supplant the dominance of androcentrism. (shrink)

The traditional Chinese idea of t'ien‐jen‐ho‐i (Heaven and humanity in union) implies that humanity has to live in harmony with nature. As science and technology progress, however, the idea appears increasingly outmoded, and it becomes fashionable to talk about overcoming nature. Ironically, though, the further science reaches the more clearly are its limitations exposed. The exploitation of nature not only endangers many life forms on earth but threatens the very existence of the human species. I propose that (...) a reconstruction of the traditional Chinese idea of T'ien‐jen‐ho‐i will help us envisage a new and salutary relation between humanity and nature. (shrink)

This essay argues that Herder’s conception of history as a form of natural growth is grounded in his claim that humans are a part of nature and develop historically situated forms of reason in communication with the features of their natural and social environments. By stressing this developmental aspect of human reason, Herder not only helps us to correct an overly universalistic conception of reason that ignores the importance of situational contexts in the shaping of cognitive structures; he (...) also allows us to comprehend that the very capacity that has traditionally been seen as distinguishing humans from all other animals—namely human reason—evolves out of a capacity we share with them, namely the capacity to adapt to specific environmental demands. (shrink)

In this article, we will show how Derrida’s deconstruction of modern individualism, exemplified by Robinson Crusoe’s attitude toward nature, addresses the contemporary debate on the Anthropocene. Through Hadot’s genealogy of modern “prometheanism,” we will discuss how a different gaze by human beings on themselves and nature can lead us out of the modern self-conception of the human person, that is resulting in the Anthropocene era, its catastrophic results endangering the very survival of humankind. Through Morton’s conception of hospitality (...) and Haraway’s notion of Chthulucene, we argue that a new individual and collective conversion to nature may result in an era in which human beings can conceive of themselves as ethical parts of nature. Hence, a new view on the reciprocal interdependence between human beings and nature can be affirmed, creating a feeling of hospitality without hostility. We conclude by considering Agamben’s recovery of Franciscanism, as a form-of-life, preceding modernity, in which this ethical, natural civilization was firstly foreseen. (shrink)

The appreciation of nature and natural beauty demands our attention as environmental issues become ever more urgent. In this timely introduction, Glenn Parsons provides an overview of philosophical work on the aesthetics of nature, identifying key conceptual questions, clarifying central theories, and analyzing the ethical ramifications of our experience of natural beauty. Outlining five major approaches to understanding the aesthetic value of nature, this second edition explores the aesthetic appreciation of nature as it occurs in wilderness, (...) in gardens, and in the context of appreciating environmental art. Now updated to cover recent developments in the field, it includes: · A new chapter on the sublime, the picturesque, and the beautiful · Expanded discussion of empirical and evolutionary accounts of nature appreciation, as well as the appreciation of the environment in non-Western cultures · A new chapter on the aesthetic appreciation of animals · An in-depth analysis of the appreciation of nature through cinema and photography · Discussion of the relation between environmental appreciation and climate change __ Combining a clear and engaging style with a sophisticated treatment of a fascinating subject, _Aesthetics and Nature_ explores the aesthetic dimension of humanity's relationship with our physical surroundings. This a must-read for anyone who cares about nature and the future of our environment. (shrink)

The philanthropist and philosopher Strachan Donnelley (1942--2008) devoted his life to studying the complex relationship between humans and nature. Founder and first president of the Center for Humans and Nature, Donnelley was a pioneer in the exploration and promotion of the idea that human beings individually and collectively have moral and civic responsibilities to natural ecosystems. In this wide-ranging volume, Donnelley traces the connections between influential figures such as Aldo Leopold and Charles Darwin, as (...) well as lesser-known but original thinkers that he met during the course of a full life -- ministers at his church, friends with whom he fished, and colleagues who shared his passion for research and writing. He grounds his work in classic philosophers such as Descartes, Spinoza, and Whitehead and reinterprets their writings about the natural world to develop a conservation-centered philosophy, which he dubs "democratic ecological citizenship." Edited by his daughter, Ceara Donnelley, and Bruce Jennings, Frog Pond Philosophy illuminates the dominant strands of Donnelley's intellectual identity as a philosopher, naturalist, agitator, and spiritualist. Despite his often grim depiction of the current state of the environment, Donnelly never surrenders his faith in humanity's ability to meet its ethical obligations to conserve, respect, and nurture the complexity and diversity of the natural world. His vivid and personal essays, rooted in everyday experiences, offer a distinctive perspective on questions of urgent contemporary importance. (shrink)

This study sheds new insight on how historically oppressed and marginalized actors are able to pursue environmental sustainability based on alternative worldviews (e.g., Indigenous worldviews) rather than succumbing to those dominant in the Western society, based on a study of the Syilx (“Okanagan”) people in British Columbia, Canada. We found that the Syilx people enacted the ethical practice of _nʕawqnwixʷ_ (“the reciprocal gentle dropping of thoughts, like water, into everyone’s minds to address the issue at the centre of discussion and (...) to reach collective consensus for action”), anchored in the Syilx worldview, to reconstruct the relationships between humans and nature. Two overlapping processes are involved: developing foundational principles for human–nature relations and carrying out reconstruction work. Ongoing enactment of _nʕawqnwixʷ_ practice provided community-based agency, enabling the Syilx people to shift the conversation around environmental sustainability. From this, we discuss the theoretical potential of community-based agency for the study of environmental sustainability, and the role of Indigenous worldviews for (re)imagining human-nature ethics (and reorienting the theoretical lens of human-animal or human-plant ethics form a firm-centric focus to a community-oriented lens), and important implications for practitioners and policymakers in the field of environmental sustainability. (shrink)

The debate over whether human nature is good or bad and how this is related to self-cultivation was central in the minds of traditional Chinese thinkers. This essay analyzes the interrelationship between the key concepts of xing 性 (human nature), qing 情 (human emotions/feelings), and xin 心 (heart-mind) in the Guodian text of the Xing Zi Ming Chu 性自命出 (Nature Derives from Mandate) discovered in 1993 in Hubei province. The intellectual engagements evident in this Guodian text (...) emerge as more syncretic and dynamic than those that can be found in the discourse of any single tradition, such as Gaozi, Mencius, or Xunzi. Its thesis on human nature and moral cultivation reveals the existence of a possibly more diverse intellectual discourse from which the different foci of philosophical debate represented by later thinkers developed. (shrink)

In this thesis, I have explored, explicated and argued for some specific areas of commonalities between the philosophy of John Dewey and the teaching of Confucius. Both theories start with the same fundamental assumption that there is no such thing as immutable human nature, and their shared emphasis on education is based on this supposition. John Dewey and Confucius agree that the self mainly consists of habits and that the transformation of the self implies growth, i.e., the acquisition (...) of new and intelligent habits. The Deweyan conception of growth overlaps the Confucian doctrine of self-cultivation in that both concepts focus on the obtainment of inner moral qualities that are of great communal import. Dewey's construal of freedom seems to parallel jen, the Confucian ideal, because both thinkers maintain that human perfection is the ultimate goal for which we should strive unceasingly. (shrink)

The article aims to explore the link between commodification of nature and commodification of food. The latter is in fact one of the most negative and controversial aspects of nature commodification. The examination of food commodification represents fertile ground for investigating the relationship between humans and nature. In this context, food sovereignty provides a useful paradigm that not only serves as an alternative to the current food regime, but also allows for the experiencing a (...) different kind of relationship between humans and nature. Food sovereignty represents a unique social movement in which community, political, and cultural rights are intertwined with the issue of food. Through its multidisciplinary approach and its strongly ethical component, food sovereignty constitutes an opportunity in order to contrast the progressive commodification of nature and of the environment. (shrink)

Although the notion of natural behavior occurs in many policy-making and legal documents on animal welfare, no consensus has been reached concerning its definition. This paper argues that one reason why the notion resists unanimously accepted definition is that natural behavior is not properly a biological concept, although it aspires to be one, but rather a philosophical tendency to perceive animal behavior in accordance with certain dichotomies between nature and culture, animal and human, original orders and invented artifacts. (...) The paper scrutinizes the philosophy of natural behavior as it developed in the organic movement in response to a perceived contrast between industrialized and traditional agriculture. There are two reasons for focusing on the organic movement: (i) the emphasis on “the natural” is most accentuated there and has a long history, (ii) everyday life on organic farms presupposes human/animal interplay, which conflicts with the philosophical tendency to separate nature from culture. This mismatch between theory and practice helps us see why, and how, the philosophy of natural behavior needs to be reconsidered. The paper proposes that we understand farms as local human/animal cultures, and asks what we can mean my natural behavior in such contexts. Since domestic animals adapt to agricultural environments via interaction with caretakers, such interplay is analyzed as “hub” in these animals’ natural behavior. (shrink)

Whenever we try to make an inventory of humankind’s store of knowledge, we stumble into an ongoing battle between what CP Snow called ‘the two cultures’. On one side are the humanities, on the other are the sciences (natural and physical), with social science and philosophy caught somewhere in the middle. This is more than a turf dispute among academics. It strikes at the core of what we mean by human knowledge.

Résumé: Jusqu’à présent, le développement humain a eu pour corolaire la destruction des paysages culturels. Avec le développement de la civilisation industrielle, les gens ne profitent pas seulement du bonheur qu’elle leur apporte, mais sont également confrontés à divers problèmes liés aux paysages culturels. La philosophie de l’environnement est une philosophie moderne qui considère la relation entre l’homme et la nature comme une question fondamentale, et qui met l’accent sur la protection des paysages culturels. L’analyse de la philosophie environnementale (...) de la Chine ancienne montre que les anciens penseurs se souciaient de tout ce qui se trouve au ciel et sur la terre et qu’ils exploraient en profondeur des questions telles que le développement harmonieux entre l’homme et la nature, offrant ainsi une nouvelle approche de la protection des paysages culturels chinois. Prenant l’exemple de la philosophie environnementale taoïste, cet article propose une analyse préliminaire de la définition des paysages culturels, du développement de la philosophie environnementale et de la philosophie environnementale taoïste. Partant de là, il explore le rôle de la philosophie environnementale telle que “l’unité du ciel et de l’homme” dans la construction de la civilisation écologique, apportant ainsi de nouvelles idées pour la protection des paysages culturels. (shrink)

The tradition of planting and maintaining home gardens is an expression of culture and represents an intense interaction between humans and plants. Forty-nine home gardens in northeastern Thailand were surveyed and found to be quite rich and diverse. The gardens contained domesticated plants, species that are not native to the area, and local non-domesticates. We focused on women's gardening practices as behaviors that create an intensive interaction with the physical and social environment and found that women are increasing (...) their management and manipulation of non-domesticated resources. Home gardens, maintained primarily by women, are part of a continuum of resource areas that are constructed and utilized. The maintenance of specific plants in the gardens provide a source of stability in the rapidly changing cultural, social, and economic environment. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Humans and the World: From the Perspective of Affairs by Yang GuorongHuanyou Li1 (bio)Ren yu Shijie: Yi Shi Guanzhi 人與世界：以事观之 (Humans and the World: From the Perspective of Affairs). By Yang Guorong 杨国荣. Beijing: Sanlian Press, 2021. Pp. xii+ 289. Paperback RMB55, isbn 9787108071217.Yang Guorong is not only a prominent scholar specializing in Chinese philosophy, but also a contemporary Chinese philosopher who has devoted himself to (...) creating his own philosophical system known as "concrete metaphysics" (juti xingershangxue 具体形而上学). In Humans and the World: From the Perspective of Affairs (hereafter Humans and the World), Yang delves into his philosophical system, with a primary focus on affairs (shi 事), which he sees as an embodiment of his ideas.According to Yang, "affairs" refers to actual human activities, encompassing both the act of "doing affairs" (zuoshi 作事) and its results. In essence, "affairs" or "doing affairs" represent humans' engagement in understanding and transforming the world while also striving for self-realization. "From the perspective of affairs" entails understanding humans and the world, as well as their correlation, in a primitive and fundamental manner. Yang aims to achieve the unification of "that which is antecedent to the material form" (xingershang 形而上) and "that which is subsequent to the material form" (xingerxia 形而下), which serves as the central theme and objective of his philosophical system.Humans and the World has six chapters in total. In Chapter 1, the author elucidates the intricate relationship between affairs and the actual world. From his perspective, the emergence of the actual world is rooted in the process of human activities that involve transforming things (wu 物) (p. 29). Thus, this chapter primarily delves into the distinction between things and affairs. Yang draws upon and examines various pertinent theories, including those from Confucianism, Daoism, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein. He argues that things possess their inherent and natural existence (benran cunzai 本然存在), but it is only through affairs that they can actively participate in the becoming of the actual world. Throughout the process of engaging in affairs, humans can grasp the underlying principles of things, which, in turn, continue to exist in manifold forms. Additionally, as these things serve human needs, their significance becomes manifest (pp. 30-42). Hence, doing affairs not only involves [End Page 1] understanding or recognizing things but also entails making value judgements. In the actual world, the unity of fact and value can be achieved through the medium of affairs. When humans are involved in doing affairs, things are no longer confined to their inherent nature or merely existing in themselves. Instead, they are transformed through the concrete and practical actions of humans, contributing to the construction of the actual world. It is through this dynamic interplay between things and humans that the certainty of the actual world is realized (p. 48).Chapter 2 further explores the correlation between human existence and affairs. The author asserts that affairs encompass the entire process of human existence (p. 51). Engaging in affairs involves transforming things, effecting changes in the world, accumulating empirical experiences, cultivating personal virtues, and actualizing social roles. This interplay with affairs reflects the structural manifestation of human existence in diverse forms (pp. 53-64). According to Yang, the concrete significance of human existence lies in the realization of the value of being human, which is to understand and transform the world. This necessitates that humans actively participate in creative activities, which, in essence, means they must be involved in doing affairs. From Yang's perspective, true freedom and fulfillment can only be attained when individuals immerse themselves in concrete affairs, utilizing their essential power and overcoming challenges. By doing so, they will avoid feelings of dullness or emptiness, because the fulfillment of doing affairs requires more than mere personal ability--it involves understanding objective realities and adapting to specific circumstances. Moreover, it demands a positive approach that unifies the principles of righteousness, goodness, and effectiveness. In this manner, humans can successfully navigate their engagement with affairs and realize their potential for freedom and self-fulfillment (pp. 67-69).Chapter 3 focuses on the relationship between "being" and "becoming" viewed from the perspective of affairs. Yang examines Whitehead's ideas and argues that the original world (benren shijie 本然世界) experiences change... (shrink)

Nonfictional field recording is a genre of music which offers a glimpse of art beyond our late-capitalist age. The ongoing ecocide which we, in a state of abject detachment, are witnessing and abetting calls out for artists to reconnect and reengage with the nonhuman world that has been deemed valueless by our civilization. Countering the disenchantment of nature wrought by scientism, human-centrism, and above all capitalism necessitates a dissolving of the barriers we set up between ourselves and our (...) environment, a task which can be only accomplished via religion or art: an art—like field recording—which affords reconnecting its audience with the enchantment of the ignored world surrounding them. In this article, Toshiya Tsunoda’s exemplary Somashikiba —recorded in locations forgotten by civilization—will be examined via interpretive tools adapted from Ueda Shizuteru’s Kyoto School aesthetics and Takahashi Mutsuo’s poetics. Ueda’s philosophy offers a way of understanding perception which eliminates the subject-object division. Takahashi’s project of recovering the spirituality of place through poetry is a model of historically and politically engaged art. Looking, as these contemporary Japanese thinkers have done, to the precapitalist, pre-formalist past to rediscover art’s function as a medium which reconfigures the listener’s perception of reality, I argue for the urgency of sound art such as Tsunoda’s which aids in the re-enchantment of the world to a future beyond capitalist, humanist “civilization.”. (shrink)

In this paper I reconstruct Schlegel's idea that romantic poetry can re-enchant nature in a way that is uniquely compatible with modernity's epistemic and political values of criticism, self-criticism, and freedom. I trace several stages in Schlegel's early thinking concerning nature. First, he criticises modern culture for its analytic, reflective form of rationality which encourages a disenchanting view of nature. Second, he re-evaluates this modern form of rationality as making possible an ironic, romantic, poetry, which portrays natural (...) phenomena as mysterious indications of an underlying reality that transcends knowledge. Yet Schlegel relies here on a contrast between human freedom and natural necessity that reinstates a disenchanting view of nature as fully intelligible and predictable. Third, therefore, he reconceives nature as inherently creative and poetic, rethinking human creativity as consisting in participation in natural creative processes. He replaces his earlier "idealist" view that reality is in itself unknowable with the "idealist realist" view that reality is knowable as creative nature, yet, in its spontaneous creativity, still eludes full comprehension. I argue that Schlegel's third approach to the re-enchantment of nature is his most consistent and satisfactory, and is important for contemporary environmental philosophy in showing how re-enchantment is compatible with modernity. (shrink)

With this book we see a philosopher well steeped in the Western tradition thinking through ancient Eastern disciplines, meditating on what it means to learn to breathe, and urging us all at the dawn of a new century to rediscover indigenous Asian cultures. Yogic tradition, according to Irigaray, can provide an invaluable means for restoring the vital link between the present and eternity--and for re-envisioning the patriarchal traditions of the West. Western, logocentric rationality tends to abstract the teachings of (...) yoga from its everyday practice--most importantly, from the cultivation of breath. Lacking actual, personal experience with yoga or other Eastern spiritual practices, the Western philosophers who have tried to address Hindu and Buddhist teachings--particularly Schopenhauer--have frequently gone astray. Not so, Luce Irigaray. Incorporating her personal experience with yoga into her provocative philosophical thinking on sexual difference, Irigaray proposes a new way of understanding individuation and community in the contemporary world. She looks toward the indigenous, pre-Aryan cultures of India--which, she argues, have maintained an essentially creative ethic of sexual difference predicated on a respect for life, nature, and the feminine. Irigaray's focus on breath in this book is a natural outgrowth of the attention that she has given in previous books to the elements--air, water, and fire. By returning to fundamental human experiences--breathing and the fact of sexual difference--she finds a way out of the endless sociologizing abstractions of much contemporary thought to rethink questions of race, ethnicity, and globalization. (shrink)

In New Essays on Human Understanding, book II, chapter xxi Leibniz presents an interesting picture of the human mind as not only populated by perceptions, volitions and appetitions, but also by endeavours. The endeavours in question can be divided to entelechy and effort; Leibniz calls entelechy as primitive active forces and efforts as derivative forces. The entelechy, understood as primitive active force is to be equated with a substantial form, as Leibniz says: “When an entelechy – i.e. a primary or (...) substantial endeavour – is accompanied by perception, it is a soul” (NE II, xxi, §1; RB, 170). What about efforts, then? One is certainly the will. In NE, II, xxi, §5 Leibniz argues that volition is the effort (conatus) to move towards what one finds good and away from what one finds bad and that this endeavor arises from the perceptions we are aware of. As an endeavour results in action unless it is prevented, from will (which is always directed to the good) and power together follows action. However, this is not so simple. Leibniz argues that there is also a second class of efforts: “There are other efforts, arising from insensible perceptions, which we are not aware of; I prefer to call these ‘appetitions’ rather than volitions” (NE II, xxi, §5; RB, 173). Although there are appetitions of which one can be aware, usually these appetitions arise from the insensible petite perceptions and are consequently affecting us subconsciously. Now, although all minute perceptions are confused perceptions, they are always related to pleasure and displeasure and also to perfection and imperfection. From this follows that there can be different efforts present in the soul at the same time: the will which is directed to apperceived good and several separate appetitions which lead to different goals, both to those which bring about perfection and pleasure of the mind (joy) and those which bring about displeasure and imperfection (sorrow). These efforts are not only in conflict with each other but may also be in conflict with entelechy. A typical case is perceiving a sensual pleasure. Our entelechy which is always directed to final causes (perfection) may be in conflict with several different appetitions which are related in different ways to the sensual pleasure in question. If our understanding is developed enough, our will resists the temptation posed by the pleasure (agreeing with entelechy), but if the temptation is too strong, the appetitions outweigh the will and the resulting action bring about imperfection and sorrow as it is related to imperfection. In this paper I will argue that deliberation in the human soul is a battle of different endeavors described above: the entelechy in the soul strives according to its law-of-the-series towards its telos (perfection) and the will accompanies it by being automatically directed to the good. This thrust towards the apparent good is aided or hindered by the appetitions which can be thought as derivative forces in the Leibnizian dynamics. Depending on whether the predominant appetitions are related to good or bad desires, the deliberation succeeds or fails in achieving the real good which is the goal of human deliberation. The successs can be facilitated beforehand by developing our understanding so that we are less easily swept away by the derivative forces (NE II, xxi, §19). A central role in this task is played by strong willing. As Martha Bolton has noted in her recent paper, an essential feature of the basic, standing endeavors is that they are continuous – although the power balance in the soul changes from moment to moment, something lingers from our previous volitions. That is why Leibniz argues that we pave way for the future deliberations by our previous voluntary actions (NE II, xxi, §23). In contrast, the appetitions are temporary, fliegende Gedanken as Leibniz says in NE II, xxi, §12. Therefore there is a constant, always changing power balance between two kinds of endeavors in the soul: primitive active force versus derivative forces. I will argue that the behavior of the forces in the soul can be understood with a vectorial model which is related to Leibniz’s early ideas of calculus of variations and which was anticipated by Arnauld and Nicole’s Port-Royal Logic. The central idea in the model is that the options are in tension towards each other and the ratio between them at each moment determines the consequent outcome. The proper relationship between the endeavors is not a simple balance, two options which exhaust each other, but a case where different efforts complement each other: “Since the final result is determined by how things weigh against one another, I should think it could happen that he most pressing disquiet did not prevail; for even If it prevailed over each of the contrary endeavours taken singly, it may be outweighed by all of them together.” Leibniz continues : “Everything which then impinges on us weighs in the balance and contributes to determining a resultant direction, almost as in mechanics” (NE II, xxi, §40; RB, 193). The different endeavors can be understood as vectors leading to different directions and the end result is a certain direction that deliberation takes. The dynamical tension between the different endeavors presents a situation where everything affects everything and the following direction, the resulting volition follows more or less automatically. In Theodicy, §325 Leibniz describes the deliberation as follows: “One might, instead of the balance, compare the soul with a force that puts forth an effort on various sides simultaneously, but which acts only at the spot where action is easiest or there is least resistance” (Huggard, 322) This kind of dynamical tension can be understood in terms of the calculus of variations where there are several possible variations available but where the dynamics of the situation results in the decision taking the “easiest” route which is more or less objectively good depending on the level of the deliberator’s understanding. In his comments to Bayle’s note L of “Rorarius” Leibniz says: “The soul, even though it has no parts, has within it, because of the multitude of representations of external things, or rather because of the representation of the universe lodged within it by the creator, a great number, or rather an infinite number, of variations (Woolhouse & Francks (ed.), ‘New System’ and Associated Texts, 101). This kind of deliberation is comparable to God’s choice of the best world with the difference that God’s understanding is infinite which again results in the fact that the choice is the best possible. Whereas in nature the easiest route taken is always optimal as nature is God’s creation, in men the goodness or badness of men’s actions is dependent on their state of wisdom, that is, how developed their understanding is. The more wise men are, the more metaphysical goodness or perfection follows from their actions. (shrink)

From climate change to fossil fuel dependency, from the uneven effects of natural disasters to the loss of biodiversity: complex socio-environmental problems indicate the urgency for cross-disciplinary research into the ways in which the social, the natural and the technological are ever more entangled. This ground breaking text moves between environmental sociology and environmental geography, political and social ecology and critical design studies to provide a definitive mapping of the state of environmental social theory in the age of the (...) anthropocene. Environments, Natures and Social Theory provokes dialogue and confrontation between critical political economists, actor network theorists, neo-Malthusians and environmental justice advocates. It maps out the new environmental politics of hybridity moving from hybrid neo-liberals to end times ecologists, from post environmentalists to cyborg eco-socialists. White, Rudy and Gareau insist on the necessity of a critical but optimistic hybrid politics, arguing that a more just, egalitarian, democratic and sustainable anthropocene is within our grasp. This will only be brought into being, however, by reclaiming, celebrating and channeling the reconstructive potential of entangled hybrid humans as inventive hominids, creative gardeners, critical publics and political agents. Written in an accessible style, Environments, Natures and Social Theory is an essential resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students across the social sciences. (shrink)

With this book we see a philosopher well steeped in the Western tradition thinking through ancient Eastern disciplines, meditating on what it means to learn to breathe, and urging us all at the dawn of a new century to rediscover indigenous Asian cultures. Yogic tradition, according to Irigaray, can provide an invaluable means for restoring the vital link between the present and eternity -- and for re-envisioning the patriarchal traditions of the West. Western, logocentric rationality tends to abstract the (...) teachings of yoga from its everyday practice -- most importantly, from the cultivation of breath. Lacking actual, personal experience with yoga or other Eastern spiritual practices, the Western philosophers who have tried to address Hindu and Buddhist teachings -- particularly Schopenhauer -- have frequently gone astray. Not so, Luce Irigaray. Incorporating her personal experience with yoga into her provocative philosophical thinking on sexual difference, Irigaray proposes a new way of understanding individuation and community in the contemporary world. She looks toward the indigenous, pre-Aryan cultures of India -- which, she argues, have maintained an essentially creative ethic of sexual difference predicated on a respect for life, nature, and the feminine. Irigaray's focus on breath in this book is a natural outgrowth of the attention that she has given in previous books to the elements -- air, water, and fire. By returning to fundamental human experiences -- breathing and the fact of sexual difference -- she finds a way out of the endless sociologizing abstractions of much contemporary thought to rethink questions of race, ethnicity, and globalization. (shrink)

In this book, Luce Irigaray - philosopher, linguist, psychologist and psychoanalyst - proposes nothing less than a new conception of being as well as a means to ensure its individual and relational development from birth. Unveiling the mystery of our origin is probably what most motivates our quests and plans. Now such a disclosure proves to be impossible. Indeed we were born of a union between two, and we are forever deprived of an origin of our own. Hence our (...) ceaseless search for roots: in our genealogy, in the place where we were born, in our culture, religion or language. But a human being cannot develop starting from roots as a tree does, it must take on responsibility for its own being and existence without continuity with its origin and background. How can we succeed in doing that? First by cultivating our breathing, which is not only the means thanks to which we come into the world, but which also allows us to transcend mere survival towards a spiritual becoming. Taking on our sexuate belonging is the second element which makes us able to assume our natural existence. Indeed this determination at once brings us energy and provides us with a structure which contributes to our individuation and our relations with other living beings and the world. Our sexuation can also compensate for our absence of roots by compelling us to unite with the other sex so that we freely approach the copulative conjunction from which we were born; that is, the mystery of our origin. This does not occur through a mere sexual instinct or drive, but requires us to cultivate desire and love with respect for our mutual difference(s). In this way we become able to give rise to a new human being, not only at a natural but also at an ontological level. (shrink)

In his 1785-review of the Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit, Kant objects to Herder's conception of nature as being imbued with active forces. This attack is usually evaluated against the background of Kant's critical project and his epistemological concern to caution against the “metaphysical excess” of attributing immanent properties to matter. In this paper I explore a slightly different reading by investigating Kant's pre-critical account of creation and generation. The aim of this is to show that Kant's (...) struggle with the forces of matter has a long history and revolves around one central problem: that of how to distinguish between the non-purposive forces of nature and the intentional powers of the mind. Given this history, the epistemic stricture that Kant's critical project imposes on him no longer appears to be the primary reason for his attack on Herder. It merely aggravates a problem that Kant has been battling with since his earliest writings. (shrink)

Grasping the link between some deep yet naturalized form of normativity and the emergence of human intentionality in the natural evolutionary process is a key to re-enchantment of nature.

Interpreting a scene of lactation failure allows us to represent breast-feeding as a contested social practice. This essay reads a novelistic scene of lactation failure in the context of the decline of breast-feeding in the twentieth century. The protagonist's ignorance of the female experiences of pregnancy, childbirth, and lactation is an effect of her objectification within the opposition between science and nature. Unnatural as a woman because she is a natural individual, the pastor's wife exemplifies the dilemmas of (...) breast-feeding as a biosocial practice of maternity in a technological society which features the breakdown of traditional female networks in which knowledge about maternity and breast-feeding are circulated. (shrink)

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In deliberate contrast to the ethical intellectualism of Socrates, Aristotle develops a complex conception of virtues as character traits which are closely tied to the different elements and stages of their cultivation: in the gradual process of becoming good, ‘learning by doing’ is the central cornerstone for establishing a close connectivity between emotion and reason as well as between desire, decision and right action. Virtue as a perfection of human nature engenders the best possible integration of irrational (...) striving with reason in the soul and is thus the constitutive component of human flourishing. (shrink)

Books were materially and metaphorically botanical in the early modern period. This article uses The Garden of Cyrus, Thomas Browne’s wide-ranging philosophical tract, to illustrate how the often self-conscious links between books and gardens could operate in epistemologically significant ways. It argues that Browne’s repeated positioning of his book as a garden creates a productive model for aesthetic, theological and scientific experimentation and innovation. The framework of the garden constructs a space in which the foremost, apparently contradictory, models of (...) knowledge associated with the seventeenth-century garden—the analogical approach of the doctrine of signatures and the empirical approach associated with the “new science”—can coexist. Extrapolating from the book of nature to suggest the inherently discursive and rhetorical forms of Browne’s knowledge as well as its limitations, the article concludes by proposing a new spatial model for this kind of coterminous literary and experimental approach: the elaboratory. (shrink)

A Japanese garden is an artistically shaped piece of the environment as well as a representation of nature. In the aesthetic experience of Japanese gardens it is possible to conceive of the relation between nature and art in a way different from anything accessible within the horizon of European aesthetics alone. In a Japanese garden the artificially shaped nature does not suffer a loss of its proper quality of naturalness, but seems to be even more natural (...) according to the criteria underlying the aesthetic appreciation of the beauty of nature itself. These gardens demonstrate human labor as something which does not necessarily collide with natural beauty. Here, a work of art can be experienced as bemg potentially reconciled with the very idea of nature in its most beautiful state of self-realization. (shrink)

The rise of the idea of the Anthropocene is promoting multiple reflections on its meaning. As we consider entering this new geological epoch, we realize the pervasiveness of humankind’s deconstruction and reconstruction of the Earth, in both geophysical and discursive terms. As the body of the Earth is marked and reshaped, so is its idea. From a hostile territory to be subjugated and exploited through sovereign commands, the Earth is now reframed as a vulnerable domain in need of protection. The (...) mode of sovereignty, which has accompanied human and legal history and practice during modernity and its project of mastery, is no longer useful. Humanity’s control of the Earth is being reimagined and reconfigured along biopolitical coordinates of thought and action. Biopolitics shifts the focus of power, changes its modalities of interventions, and rearticulates its legitimacy on the idea of taking responsibility for the Earth, for nature. A biopolitical re-orientation of law captures the fundamental aim of caring for nature, of fostering its vital possibilities and of enhancing its productive potential. Yet, biopolitics engulfs nature in its entirety under its framework of control, where protection and subjugation, vulnerability and productivity, life and death are constantly entangled in a reciprocal and inevitable relation of indistinguishability. Sovereignty becomes thus a key modality of biopolitical intervention, when nature is recalcitrant, wild, spontaneous, unpredictable, violent, dangerous. Biopolitics, thus, remains caught in an undecidable dilemma, where in order to protect the Earth, it must subjugate it; to save it, it must condemn it. In this respect, biopolitics remains utterly modern, or as argued by Roberto Esposito, modernity has always been biopolitical, insofar as modernity has emerged as a framework for the protection of life against life’s own excesses. But how can we escape the biopolitical reframing and enframing of the Earth and its total subsumption under its matrix of control? How can we rethink the encounter between law and nature without remaining entangled in the aporetic dilemma of biopolitics? An aesthetics of wonder may offer a way. (shrink)

Artifacts are objects intentionally made to serve a given purpose; natural objects come into being without human intervention. I shall argue that this difference does not signal any ontological deficiency in artifacts qua artifacts. After sketching my view of artifacts as ordinary objects, I’ll argue that ways of demarcating genuine substances do not draw a line with artifacts on one side and natural objects on the other. Finally, I’ll suggest that philosophers have downgraded artifacts because they think of metaphysics as (...) resting on a distinction between what is “mind­independent” and what is “mind­ dependent.” I’ll challenge the use of any such distinction as a foundation for metaphysics. (shrink)

This volume explores the deeply interwoven connection of education, art and nature in the context of East Asia. With contributions from authors in South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, the book considers unnoticed but significant themes involved in the interplay of nature, art, and education. It manifests how nature and art can educate, and how education and nature play the role of art. The chapters explore a range of themes relevant to East Asian characteristics, including skill acquisition, (...) Japanese calendar arts and ritual of feelings, garden architecture, the ritualised body, collaborative poetry art, translational language between humans and nature, the Confucian classical Six Arts, the artistic embodiment of the Kyoto School, and the heritage art based education in Korea. The authors examine these themes in novel ways to bring to light the relevance of the East Asian insights to the contemporary global world. This book is an outstanding resource to all researchers, scholars, and students interested in educational aesthetics, philosophy of education, East Asian studies, comparative education and intercultural education. (shrink)

There has recently been a surge of development in augmented reality (AR) technologies that has led to an ecosystem of hardware and software for AR, including tools for artists and designers to accelerate the design of AR content and experiences without requiring complex programming. AR is viewed as a key “disruptive technology” and future display technologies (such as digital eyewear) will provide seamless continuity between reality and the digitally augmented. This article will argue that the technologization of human perception (...) and experience of reality, coupled with the development of artificial intelligence (AI)–based natural language assistants, may lead to a secular re‐enchantment of the world, in the sense outlined by Charles Taylor, where human existence is shaped through AR inhabited by advanced personal and social AI agents in the form of digital avatars and daemons, and that enchantment has been persistent throughout the formation of modernity and is being rekindled by the integration of AI in the plane of AR. (shrink)