The last 20 years have witnessed the dramatic growth of the animal rights movement and a concurrent increase in its social scientific scrutiny. One of the most notable and consistent findings to emerge from this body of research has been the central role of women in the movement. This paper uses General Social Survey data to examine the influence of views of the relationship of humanity to nature on this gender difference. Holding a Romantic view of nature (...) is associated with higher levels of support for extending moral rights to animals and lower levels of support for animal-based testing. A Darwinian view is associated with greater support for testing on animals but is unrelated to views on moral rights for animals. In general, views of nature affect animal rights advocacy to a greater extent among males than females. (shrink)

This paper explicates Wittgenstein's vision of our place in nature and shows in what ways it is unlike and more fruitful than the picture of nature promoted by exclusive scientific naturalists. Wittgenstein's vision of nature is bound up with and supports his signature view that the task of philosophy is distinctively descriptive rather than explanatory. Highlighting what makes Wittgenstein's vision of nature special, it has been claimed that to the extent that he qualifies as a (...) naturalist of any sort he ought to be regarded as a liberal naturalist. We argue, in contrast, that focusing solely on the liberality of Wittgenstein's view of nature risks overlooking and downplaying the ways in which his philosophical clarifications can act as a platform for productively engaging with the sciences in their explanatory endeavors. We argue that Wittgenstein's vision of nature allows for a more relaxed form of naturalism in which philosophy can be a productive partner for scientific inquiry and investigation. Although this feature of Wittgenstein's vision of nature is not something that he himself emphasized, given his interests and concerns, it is an inspiring vision in an age in which philosophy must find its feet with and alongside the sciences. (shrink)

Nature conservation requires choices about what sort of nature should be protected in what areas and includes value judgments on what nature is and/or should be. This paper studies the role of differing views of nature in nature conservation. A case study on the creation of a drift sand area in the Netherlands illustrates how nature conservation disputes can be understood as a conflict in views of nature.

A distinguished French scholar has recently set himself to delineate the history of Greek thought, from the time of Plato through the formation of the Hellenistic systems to the days of the empire, distinguishing two opposing tendencies, one towards pantheism and the other towards a philosophy of transcendence. But that distinction can be traced also in earlier periods than those with which Fr. Festugière is concerned, and it can be applied to theories of the soul equally with theories of God; (...) this theme I hope to illustrate on a tiny scale in the early part of my paper, drawing attention to tendencies on the one hand to treat the soul as part of nature, on the other to place it outside nature. The former of these is the earlier. (shrink)

In the face of the anthropogenic threats to the singular planetary habitat we share with other human beings and non-human species, humanities scholars feel a renewed sense of urgency 1) to acknowledge the ways our species has funded particular histories of environmental exploitation, alienation, and collapse, 2) to unpack inherited assumptions that impact our views of nature and interspecies relations, and 3) to suggest ways of thinking and acting that seek to repair the damage and promote mutual flourishing for (...) all of earth inhabitants. This volume brings together scholars in philosophy, theology, and religion who take up this urgent ethical task from a broad range of perspectives and locations. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that differences between the ‘new moral science’ of the seventeenth century and scholastic natural law theory originated primarily from the skeptical challenge the former had to face. Pufendorf’s project of a scientia practica universalis is the paramount expression of an anti-skeptical moral science, a ‘science’ that is both explanatory and normative, but also anti-dogmatic insofar as it tries to base its laws on those basic phenomena of human life which, supposedly, are immune to skeptical doubt. (...) The main scholastic legacy to the new moral science is the dichotomy between an ‘intellectualist’ and a ‘voluntarist’ view of natural law (or between lex immanens and lex imposita). Voluntarism lies at the basis of both theological views, such as Calvinism, and political views, such as those of Hobbes and Locke. The need to counterbalance the undesirable implications of extreme voluntarism may account for much of the developments in ethics and politics during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.Scottish natural jurisprudence, which tried to find a middle way between skepticism and extreme voluntarism, is less secular and more empirical than received wisdom admits. There emerged, as one of its ‘accidental’ outcomes, a systematic, self-contained and empirical economic theory from the search for an empirically based normative theory of social life. The basic assumption of such a theory, namely, the notion of societal laws as embedded in trans-individual mechanisms, derives from the voluntarist view of natural law as ‘imposed’ law.Later discussions of social issues in terms of ‘economic’ and ‘ethical’ reasons originated partly from a misreading ofthe Scottish natural jurisprudential framework of economic theory. Starting with this reconstruction, I try to shed some light on recent discussions about the role of ethics in economics. (shrink)

This paper contrasts conceptions of global distributive justice focused on natural resources with human rights–based approach. To emphasize the advantages of the latter, the paper analyzes three areas: (1) the methodology of normative theorizing about natural resources, (2) the category of natural resources, and (3) the view of the system of sovereignty over natural resources. Concerning the first, I argue that global justice conceptions misconstrue the claims made to natural resources and offer conceptions which are practically unfeasible. Concerning the (...) second, I show that contemporary philosophy of justice downplays the plurality of meanings resources have for collectives and argue that conflicts over natural resources can best be accounted for using human rights. Finally, the paper looks at sovereignty over natural resources and argues that rather than dismissing it as unjustifiable on moral grounds, it should be reformed in line with valid principles of international law, most importantly with human rights. (shrink)

Although _Seibutsu no Sekai _, the seminal 1941 work of Kinji Imanishi, had an enormous impact in Japan, both on scholars and on the general public, very little is known about it in the English-speaking world. This book makes the complete text available in English for the first time and provides an extensive introduction and notes to set the work in context. Imanishi's work, based on a very wide knowledge of science and the natural world, puts forward a distinctive (...) class='Hi'>view of nature and how it should be studied. Imanishi's work is particularly important as a background to ecology, primatology and human social evolution theory in Japan. Imanishi's views on these subjects are extremely interesting because he formulated an approach to viewing nature which challenged the usual international ideas of the time, and which foreshadow approaches that have currency today. (shrink)

Although Seibutsu no Sekai (The World of Living Things) , the seminal 1941 work of Kinji Imanishi, had an enormous impact in Japan, both on scholars and on the general public, very little is known about it in the English-speaking world. This book makes the complete text available in English for the first time and provides an extensive introduction and notes to set the work in context. Imanishi's work, based on a very wide knowledge of science and the natural world, (...) puts forward a distinctive view of nature and how it should be studied. Imanishi's work is particularly important as a background to ecology, primatology and human social evolution theory in Japan. (shrink)

An influential argument due to Elliott Sober, subsequently strengthened by Denis Walsh and Joel Pust, moves from plausible premises to the bold conclusion that natural selection cannot explain the traits of individual organisms. If the argument were sound, the explanatory scope of selection would depend, surprisingly, on metaphysical considerations concerning origin essentialism. I show that the Sober-Walsh-Pust argument rests on a flawed counterfactual criterion for explanatory relevance. I further show that a more defensible criterion for explanatory relevance recently proposed by (...) Michael Strevens lends support to the view that natural selection can be relevant to the explanation of individual traits. (shrink)

Recently some philosophers have emphasized a potentially irreconcilable conceptual antagonism between the statistical characterization of natural selection and the standard scientific discussion of natural selection in terms of forces and causes. Other philosophers have developed an account of the causal character of selectionist statements represented in terms of counterfactuals. I examine the compatibility between such statisticalism and counterfactually based causal accounts of natural selection by distinguishing two distinct statisticalist claims: firstly the suggested impossibility for natural selection to be a cause (...) acting upon populations and secondly the conceptualization that all evolutionary causes occur at the level of interactions between individual organisms. I argue that deriving the latter from the former involves supplementary assumptions concerning precisely what causation is. I critically examine two of these assumptions purportedly preventing natural selection being regarded as a cause: the locality claim and the modularity claim. I conclude that justifying the strongest version of statisticalism—i.e. evolutionary causation only occurs at the level of individual interactions between organisms—would require further metaphysical arguments that are likely to be deemed highly problematic. Additionally, I argue that such a metaphysical position would be considered incongruous with both our scientific and ordinary use of the concepts of causality and explanation as employed within our everyday epistemological framework. (shrink)

Teilhard’s cosmological speculation is a valuable basis for an environmental ethics that perceives individual natural objects as good in themselves and the world as good in itself. Teilhard perceives man as fundamentally part of a cosmic environmental whole that is greater than mankind taken individually or collectively. His holistic views on human biological and psychological and social evolution are, I argue,compatible with a biocentric environmental ethics. I discuss some similarities and differences with the views of the deep ecology movement. I (...) show that Teilhard’s hierarchical system is not humanistically oriented in a way that need be interpreted by Teilhardians as contrary to environmental well-being. I argue that Teilhard’s sympathies toward transportation technology, including the automobile, can be interpreted in his holistic manner. I conclude that Teilhard’s theocentric views are also a basis for supporting an environmental ethics which is both optimistic and not anthropocentric. (shrink)

Teilhard’s cosmological speculation is a valuable basis for an environmental ethics that perceives individual natural objects as good in themselves and the world as good in itself. Teilhard perceives man as fundamentally part of a cosmic environmental whole that is greater than mankind taken individually or collectively. His holistic views on human biological and psychological and social evolution are, I argue, compatible with a biocentric environmental ethics. I discuss some similarities and differences with the views of the deep ecology movement. (...) I show that Teilhard’s hierarchical system is not humanistically oriented in a way that need be interpreted by Teilhardians as contrary to environmental well-being. I argue that Teilhard’s sympathies toward transportation technology, including the automobile, can be interpreted in his holistic manner. I conclude that Teilhard’s theocentric views are also a basis for supporting an environmental ethics which is both optimistic and not anthropocentric. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the conceptual changes that occurred in the structure of physical knowledge during the second half of the 19th century, are reflected by the concept of the “primary ideal object” and its implicit definition within appropriate systems of statements, called a “nucleus of a branch of physics”. Within an NBP focus shifts away from discovering “laws of nature” to observations of a physical object and its states, while the distinct notion of “measurable” replaces the (...) vague notion “observable”. On the basis of this notion, the roles of physical models and measurements within physics, different kinds of work, experiments, and laws are discussed. Next follows a discussion of different levels of change in science, after which this distinction is compared to Kuhn’s model. Finally, I present a new combination of “realism” and “constructivism”, which differs from both the “constructive empiricism” of van Fraassen and from different “empirical realisms”. (shrink)

The March 11, 2011, Great East Japan Earthquake caused extensive damage to the Tōhoku district of Japan and gave rise to many arguments concerning the meaning of “disaster” as well as the road to recovery. In particular, the severe accident of the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant reminded us of the overconfidence of science and technology. In this article, I will discuss concepts such as “disaster of civilization,” “impermanence,” “betweenness,” and the double structure of the Japanese view of nature.

北宋代 이후에는 山水가 본격적으로 人格의 형성과 自然과의 交融을 위해 반드시 필요한 繪畵 영역으로 자리하게 되었다. 이처럼 山水는 宇宙 自然의 性情과 관련되어 중요한 役割을 하게 되었다. 특히 서양과 달리 동양의 산수에서 性情이 인간 삶의 중심이기도 하면서 文學 및 哲學을 토대로 山水畵 등 감성의 영역에서도 중요한 역할을 하였다. 西洋에서는 과학적인 면이 강조되면서 理性과 感性의 영역이 철저하게 구분되어 전개되어온 반면에, 東洋에서는 이들이 性情이라는 하나의 특별한 개념 속에서 하나로 인식되며, 실제 人間의 삶과 예술 철학 등에 직간접적으로 活用되었다. 이는 東洋과는 다른 視覺 差를 나타낼 수밖에 (...) 없는 부분이다. 東洋에서는 西洋의 理性 중심의 세계와는 달리 性과 情의 세계를 우주 질서를 이루는 중요한 根幹이자, 人格의 중심으로 생각해 왔다. 이 性과 情은 우주 세상과 인간을 연결시킬 수 있는 중요한 哲學的, 文學的, 美學的 槪念으로서, 본래 인간과 자연이 지니고 있는 本性이라 할 수 있다. 『周易』에서 “性은 사람의 理致이며 命은 天地의 이치이다.”라고 하였듯이, 자연 속에서 사람이 살아가는 이치를 담은 인격을 性과 情으로 상정하며 산수를 인간의 삶과 예술에 결부시켜 왔던 것이다. 이런 부분은 東洋과 西洋의, 自然을 소재로 한 그림에서도 모양은 일부 유사한 부분이 있을 수 있으나 근본적으로는 차이를 가질 수밖에 없게 하는 요인이기도 하다. 동양의 회화는 과학과 원근법을 중시하는 서양의 풍경화와는 달리, 성과 정 그리고 진경을 바탕으로 한 想像性(imaginary)을 특색으로 하고 있다고 할 수 있다. 그러나 중국의 산수 관념은 산수화에서 理와 性이나 精神性, 哲思性 등으로 결정된다. 그러기에 동양의 산수화는 서양의 풍경화가들이 추구했던 시각적이고 조형적인 상상력이 동원된 이미지적인 효과 보다는 오히려 性이나 理가 바탕이 된 精神性적인 표현을 추구했음에 주목할 필요가 있다. 앞서 살펴본 것처럼, 서양의 풍경화에서 어떤 精神性이나 자연의 진리를 담아내려는 의지가 좀처럼 보이지 않는 것은 그동안 이들이 추구해 왔던, 遠近法에 입각한 과학을 기초로 한 사실 그대로의 外的 再現의 審美的 範疇가 얼마나 큰 영향을 주었는지를 실감하게 해준다. 자연을 정복할 수 있다는 어리석은 믿음이 자연과 마음을 열고 인간적으로 소통할 수 있는 가능성을 없애버린 것이다. 인간의 본성이 발견하고자 하나 좀처럼 찾을 수 없는 것이 자연의 性情이다. 이처럼 인간의 산수자연을 통한 性情을 찾기 위해 東洋의 山水畵는 그 매개체 역할을 하며, 實在하는 산의 외면을 그리는 걸 그다지 중시하지 않았다. 사람의 정신과 교합되면서 이루어질 수 있는 形象을 그리기 위하여 무한한 자연이 지닌 性과 情과 관련 된 인격을 중시하였으며, 이는 서양의 이성 중심의 풍경화와 근본적으로 차이를 지닐 수밖에 없는 중요한 審美精神이라 생각된다. (shrink)

Alexander Bogdanov’s first work of philosophy, Basic Elements of the Historical View of Nature, was fundamentally influenced by Friedrich Engels. As a Marxist philosopher seeking to elaborate a comprehensive, systematic, and scientific worldview appropriate for worker–students, Bogdanov found inspiration in Engels’s Anti-Dühring, which provided him with his monist conception of being and his ‘historical view of nature’ and pointed him toward three critical elements of his work: the monism of motion, Spinoza’s naturalist and determinist system, and (...) Charles Darwin’s conception of natural selection. Bogdanov’s overall goal was to demonstrate that in nature, life, the psyche, and society there is no such thing as self-generated motion; all change occurs because of external action. For the individual and for society this means that existence determines consciousness, and societies evolve as a result of their struggle for existence, which is manifested first and foremost in labor. (shrink)

In this article I take on the “Transcendentalist Challenge” to naturalized phenomenology, highlighting how the ontological and methodological commitments of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy point in the direction of an integration of the transcendental and the scientific, thus making room for a productive exchange between philosophy and psychological science when it comes to understanding consciousness and its place in nature. Discussing various conceptions of naturalized phenomenology, I argue that what I call an “Integrationist View” is required if we are to (...) make sense of the possibility of productive exchange between phenomenology and the sciences. My main argument is that if we conceive of consciousness as a structure of behavior ontologically prior to the distinctions between objectivity and subjectivity and third- and first-person perspectives, we arrive at a view of the transcendental as not essentially separate from the domain of science, but rather as contingent organizational norms of empirical nature that are best illuminated through a dialectical exchange between phenomenological and scientific approaches. I end by showing how Merleau-Ponty’s engagement with the “Schneider case” in an example of such an integration. (shrink)

In recent years, a proliferation of books about empathy, cooperation and pro-social behaviours (Brooks, 2011a) has significantly influenced the discourse of the life-sciences and reversed consolidated views of nature as a place only for competition and aggression. In this article I describe the recent contribution of three disciplines – moral psychology (Jonathan Haidt), primatology (Frans de Waal) and the neuroscience of morality – to the present transformation of biology and evolution into direct sources of moral phenomena, a process here (...) named the ‘moralization of biology’. I conclude by addressing the ambivalent status of this constellation of authors, for whom today ‘morality comes naturally’: I explore both the attractiveness of their message, and the problematic epistemological assumptions of their research programmes in the light of new discoveries in developmental and molecular biology. (shrink)

Albert Camus repeatedly denied the label “existentialist,” and pointed to his formative experiences of natural beauty and his early introduction to classical Greek thought and culture as determinative of his philosophy. Pierre Hadot, famous for his post-1970 work on philosophy as a way of life in classical antiquity, continued throughout his life to work on the history of Western conceptions of nature. In Le voile d’Isis, Hadot excavated a second strain of Western attitudes towards nature, alongside the instrumental (...) or “Promethean” approach dominant in modernity: this is that of the contemplative Orphic perspective, closely tied in antiquity to philosophical regimens of spiritual exercises to transform philosophers’ ways of seeing. This paper will argue that Camus and Hadot should be read as two twentieth century “Orphic” figures in this sense, in a way that at once singles them out against almost all other European contemporaries, as well as speaking to our ecological concerns today. Yet the only comparative piece on the two thinkers to date, by Matthew Lamb, misses this shared contemplative, Orphic core to their positions. This paper aims to redress this shortcoming in the reception of the two figures. (shrink)

This paper deals with an attempt of the mathematician Riemann to develop an outstandingly broad view of the philosophy of nature encompassing basic phenomena of both the material and the mental world. Riemann's draft is traced in its main aspects, and is accompanied by a comparison with certain chapters in the philosophical writings of Herbart that were particularly relevant to Riemann's conception of mathematics and science on the whole. This applies, in particluar, to the epistemological background and to (...) Herbart's theory of the Self. (shrink)

An engaging account of how Shaftesbury revolutionized Western philosophy At the turn of the eighteenth century, Anthony Ashley Cooper, the third Earl of Shaftesbury, developed the first comprehensive philosophy of beauty to be written in English. It revolutionized Western philosophy. In A Philosophy of Beauty, Michael Gill presents an engaging account of how Shaftesbury’s thought profoundly shaped modern ideas of nature, religion, morality, and art—and why, despite its long neglect, it remains compelling today. Before Shaftesbury’s magnum opus, Charactersticks of (...) Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, it was common to see wilderness as ugly, to associate religion with fear and morality with unpleasant restriction, and to dismiss art as trivial or even corrupting. But Shaftesbury argued that nature, religion, virtue, and art can all be truly beautiful, and that cherishing and cultivating beauty is what makes life worth living. And, as Gill shows, this view had a huge impact on the development of natural religion, moral sense theory, aesthetics, and environmentalism. Combining captivating historical details and flashes of humor, A Philosophy of Beauty not only rediscovers and illuminates a fascinating philosopher but also offers an inspiring reflection about the role beauty can play in our lives. (shrink)

In Law's Empire Prof. Ronald Dworkin has advanced a new theory of law, complex and intriguing. He calls it law as integrity. But in some ways the more radical and surprising claim he makes is that not only were previous legal philosophers mistaken about the nature of law, they were also mistaken about the nature of the philosophy of law or jurisprudence. Perhaps it is possible to summarize his main contentions on the nature of jurisprudence in three (...) theses: First, jurisprudence is interpretive: “General theories of law… aim to interpret the main point and structure of legal practice”. Second, legal philosophy cannot be a semantic account of the word “law.” Legal philosophers “cannot produce useful semantic theories of law”. Third, legal philosophy or jurisprudence “is the general part of adjudication, silent prologue to any decision at law”. (shrink)

이 논문의 목적은 두 가지다. 하나는 로크의 자연관을 분석하는 데 있다. 이를 위해 필자는 로크의 자연관이 잘 드러나고 있는 『통치론』의 제2장과 제4장을 토대로 로크의 자연관의 핵심을 드러내고자 시도하였다. 다른 하나의 목적은 로크의 자연관을 환경윤리적 관점에서 분석하는 것이다. 환경윤리적 관점에서 볼 때 로크는 제한적 인간중심주의자, 제한적 프론티어윤리 제창자로 규정지을 수 있었다. 그리고 로크의 자연관을 분석하는 과정에서 발견할 수 있었던 더욱 중요한 사실은 로크식 관점이었다. 로크식 관점이란 우리가 누리고 있는 자연자원은 총체적으로 어느 특정 국가의 소유가 아니라 인류의 공유물․공동자산으로 여기는 관점을 말한다. 이러한 (...) 관점은 환경문제를 해결해나가는 데 하나의 소중한 돌파구를 제공해줄 수 있다는 점에서 큰 의의가 있다고 판단된다. 이 논문에서는 로크식 관점과 그 의의에 대해서도 자세히 밝히고 있다. (shrink)

Looks at the scientific basis for theories of drama, and explains how Cage's ideas have affected modern theater.