Download or read book The State of Nature written by Gregg Mitman and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1992-10 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although science may claim to be "objective," scientists cannot avoid the influence of their own values on their research. In The State of Nature, Gregg Mitman examines the relationship between issues in early twentieth-century American society and the sciences of evolution and ecology to reveal how explicit social and political concerns influenced the scientific agenda of biologists at the University of Chicago and throughout the United States during the first half of this century. Reacting against the view of nature "red in tooth and claw," ecologists and behavioral biologists such as Warder Clyde Allee, Alfred Emerson, and their colleagues developed research programs they hoped would validate and promote an image of human society as essentially cooperative rather than competitive. Mitman argues that Allee's religious training and pacifist convictions shaped his pioneering studies of animal communities in a way that could be generalized to denounce the view that war is in our genes.
Download or read book The Stuff of Thought written by Steven Pinker and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007-09-11 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This New York Times bestseller is an exciting and fearless investigation of language from the author of Rationality, The Better Angels of Our Nature and The Sense of Style and Enlightenment Now. "Curious, inventive, fearless, naughty." --The New York Times Book Review Bestselling author Steven Pinker possesses that rare combination of scientific aptitude and verbal eloquence that enables him to provide lucid explanations of deep and powerful ideas. His previous books - including the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Blank Slate - have catapulted him into the limelight as one of today's most important popular science writers. In The Stuff of Thought, Pinker presents a fascinating look at how our words explain our nature. Considering scientific questions with examples from everyday life, The Stuff of Thought is a brilliantly crafted and highly readable work that will appeal to fans of everything from The Selfish Gene and Blink to Eats, Shoots & Leaves.
Download or read book The Thou of Nature written by Donald A. Crosby and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-12-27 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humans share the earth with nonhuman animals who are also capable of conscious experience and awareness. Arguing that we should develop an I-thou, not an I-it, relationship with other sentient beings, Donald A. Crosby adds a new perspective to the current debates on human/animal relations and animal rights—that of religious naturalism. Religion of Nature holds that the natural world is the only world and that there is no supernatural animus or law behind it. From this vantage point, our fellow thous are entitled to more than merely moral treatment: protection and enhancement of their continuing well-being deserves to be a central focus of religious reverence, care, and commitment as well. A set of presumptive natural rights for nonhuman animals is proposed and conflicts in applying these rights are acknowledged and considered. A wide range of situations involving humans and nonhuman animals are discussed, including hunting and fishing; eating and wearing; circuses, rodeos, zoos, and aquariums; scientific experimentation; and the threats of human technology and population growth.
Download or read book God and Nature in the Thought of Margaret Cavendish written by Assoc Prof Brandie R Siegfried and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2014-09-28 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Only recently have scholars begun to note Margaret Cavendish’s references to 'God,' 'spirits,' and the 'rational soul,' and little has been published in this regard. This volume addresses that scarcity by taking up the theological threads woven into Cavendish’s ideas about nature, matter, magic, governance, and social relations, with special attention given to Cavendish’s literary and philosophical works. Reflecting the lively state of Cavendish studies, God and Nature in the Thought of Margaret Cavendish allows for disagreements among the contributing authors, whose readings of Cavendish sometimes vary in significant ways; and it encourages further exploration of the theological elements evident in her literary and philosophical works. Despite the diversity of thought developed here, several significant points of convergence establish a foundation for future work on Cavendish’s vision of nature, philosophy, and God. The chapters collected here enhance our understanding of the intriguing-and sometimes brilliant-contributions Cavendish made to debates about God’s place in the scientific cosmos.
Download or read book Human Nature Jewish Thought written by Alan L. Mittleman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-04-27 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What Jewish tradition can teach us about human dignity in a scientific age This book explores one of the great questions of our time: How can we preserve our sense of what it means to be a person while at the same time accepting what science tells us to be true—namely, that human nature is continuous with the rest of nature? What, in other words, does it mean to be a person in a world of things? Alan Mittleman shows how the Jewish tradition provides rich ways of understanding human nature and personhood that preserve human dignity and distinction in a world of neuroscience, evolutionary biology, biotechnology, and pervasive scientism. These ancient resources can speak to Jewish, non-Jewish, and secular readers alike. Science may tell us what we are, Mittleman says, but it cannot tell us who we are, how we should live, or why we matter. Traditional Jewish thought, in open-minded dialogue with contemporary scientific perspectives, can help us answer these questions. Mittleman shows how, using sources ranging across the Jewish tradition, from the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud to more than a millennium of Jewish philosophy. Among the many subjects the book addresses are sexuality, birth and death, violence and evil, moral agency, and politics and economics. Throughout, Mittleman demonstrates how Jewish tradition brings new perspectives to—and challenges many current assumptions about—these central aspects of human nature. A study of human nature in Jewish thought and an original contribution to Jewish philosophy, this is a book for anyone interested in what it means to be human in a scientific age.
Download or read book The Better Angels of Our Nature written by Steven Pinker and published by Penguin Books. This book was released on 2012-09-25 with total page 834 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think this is the most violent age ever seen. Yet as bestselling author Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true.
Download or read book Nature and Logos written by William S. Hamrick and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-01-02 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first booklength account of how Maurice Merleau-Ponty used certain texts by Alfred North Whitehead to develop an ontology based on nature, and how he could have used other Whitehead texts that he did not know in order to complete his last ontology. This account is enriched by several of Merleau-Ponty's unpublished writings not previously available in English, by the first detailed treatment of certain works by F.W.J. Schelling in the course of showing how they exerted a substantial influence on both Merleau-Ponty and Whitehead, and by the first extensive discussion of Merleau-Ponty's interest in the Stoics's notion of the twofold logos—the logos endiathetos and the logos proforikos. This book provides a thorough exploration of the consonance between these two philosophers in their mutual desire to overcome various bifurcations of nature, and of nature from spirit, that continued to haunt philosophy and science since the 17th-century.
Download or read book Thoreau s Nature written by Jane Bennett and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2002 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thoreau's Nature: Ethics, Politics, and the Wild explores how Thoreau crafted a life open to 'the Wild,' a term that marks the startling element of foreignness in every object of experience, however familiar. Thoreau's encounters with nature, Bennett argues, allowed him to resist his all-too-human tendency toward intellectual laziness, social conformity, and political complacency. Bennett pursues this theme by constructing a series of dialogues between Thoreau and our contemporaries: Foucault on identity and power, Haraway on the nature/culture of division, Hollywood celebrities on the Walden Woods Project, the National Endowment for the Humanities on politics and art, and Kafka on the question of political idealism. The pertinence to the late 20th century of Thoreau's pursuit of independent judgment, ecological foresight, and moral nobility becomes apparent through these engagements.
Download or read book The Philosophers written by Ben-Ami Scharfstein and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1989 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This highly readable volume offers a broad introduction to modern philosophy and philosophers. Scharfstein contends that personal experience, especially that of childhood, affects philosophers' sense of reality and hence the content of their philosophies. Basing his argument on biographical studies of twenty great philosophers, from Descartes to Sartre, he provides the beginnings of a psychological history of philosophy.
Download or read book A Non Philosophical Theory of Nature written by A. Smith and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-07-18 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Utilizing François Laruelle's "non-philosophical" method, Smith constructs a unified theory of philosophical theology and ecology by challenging environmental philosophy and theology, claiming that and engagement with scientific ecology can radically change the standard metaphysics of nature, as well as ethical problems related to "the natural".
Download or read book Lectures on the Experimental Psychology of the Thought processes written by Edward Bradford Titchener and published by . This book was released on 1909 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The End of Nature written by Bill McKibben and published by Random House. This book was released on 2014-09-03 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reissued on the tenth anniversary of its publication, this classic work on our environmental crisis features a new introduction by the author, reviewing both the progress and ground lost in the fight to save the earth. This impassioned plea for radical and life-renewing change is today still considered a groundbreaking work in environmental studies. McKibben's argument that the survival of the globe is dependent on a fundamental, philosophical shift in the way we relate to nature is more relevant than ever. McKibben writes of our earth's environmental cataclysm, addressing such core issues as the greenhouse effect, acid rain, and the depletion of the ozone layer. His new introduction addresses some of the latest environmental issues that have risen during the 1990s. The book also includes an invaluable new appendix of facts and figures that surveys the progress of the environmental movement. More than simply a handbook for survival or a doomsday catalog of scientific prediction, this classic, soulful lament on Nature is required reading for nature enthusiasts, activists, and concerned citizens alike.
Download or read book Nature in Asian Traditions of Thought written by J. Baird Callicott and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1989-04-21 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here, Western environmental philosophers and some of our most distinguished representatives of Asian and comparative philosophy critically consider what Asia has to offer. The first section provides an ecological world view as a basis for comparison. Subsequent sections include chapters by leading contemporary scholars in Chinese, Japanese, Indian, and Buddhist thought that explore the Western perception of Asian traditions—the perception that Asian philosophy is a rich conceptual resource for contemporary environmental thinkers.
Download or read book Extra Life written by Steven Johnson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-05-11 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Offers a useful reminder of the role of modern science in fundamentally transforming all of our lives.” —President Barack Obama (on Twitter) “An important book.” —Steven Pinker, The New York Times Book Review The surprising and important story of how humans gained what amounts to an extra life, from the bestselling author of How We Got to Now and Where Good Ideas Come From In 1920, at the end of the last major pandemic, global life expectancy was just over forty years. Today, in many parts of the world, human beings can expect to live more than eighty years. As a species we have doubled our life expectancy in just one century. There are few measures of human progress more astonishing than this increased longevity. Extra Life is Steven Johnson’s attempt to understand where that progress came from, telling the epic story of one of humanity’s greatest achievements. How many of those extra years came from vaccines, or the decrease in famines, or seatbelts? What are the forces that now keep us alive longer? Behind each breakthrough lies an inspiring story of cooperative innovation, of brilliant thinkers bolstered by strong systems of public support and collaborative networks, and of dedicated activists fighting for meaningful reform. But for all its focus on positive change, this book is also a reminder that meaningful gaps in life expectancy still exist, and that new threats loom on the horizon, as the COVID-19 pandemic has made clear. How do we avoid decreases in life expectancy as our public health systems face unprecedented challenges? What current technologies or interventions that could reduce the impact of future crises are we somehow ignoring? A study in how meaningful change happens in society, Extra Life celebrates the enduring power of common goals and public resources, and the heroes of public health and medicine too often ignored in popular accounts of our history. This is the sweeping story of a revolution with immense public and personal consequences: the doubling of the human life span.
Download or read book Modes of Thought written by Alfred North Whitehead and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1938 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modes of Thought was written 20 years ago from lectures delivered by Whitehead at Wellesley, the University of Chicago, and Harvard. In it Whitehead developed the brilliant new concepts of clarity and precision of statement which have since become fundamental principles of construction underlying all of the fields of modern intellectual analysis.
Download or read book Bringing Nature Home written by Douglas W. Tallamy and published by Timber Press. This book was released on 2009-09-01 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “With the twinned calamities of climate change and mass extinction weighing heavier and heavier on my nature-besotted soul, here were concrete, affordable actions that I could take, that anyone could take, to help our wild neighbors thrive in the built human environment. And it all starts with nothing more than a seed. Bringing Nature Home is a miracle: a book that summons butterflies." —Margaret Renkl, The Washington Post As development and habitat destruction accelerate, there are increasing pressures on wildlife populations. In his groundbreaking book Bringing Nature Home, Douglas W. Tallamy reveals the unbreakable link between native plant species and native wildlife—native insects cannot, or will not, eat alien plants. When native plants disappear, the insects disappear, impoverishing the food source for birds and other animals. Luckily, there is an important and simple step we can all take to help reverse this alarming trend: everyone with access to a patch of earth can make a significant contribution toward sustaining biodiversity by simply choosing native plants. By acting on Douglas Tallamy's practical and achievable recommendations, we can all make a difference.
Download or read book The Nature Fix Why Nature Makes Us Happier Healthier and More Creative written by Florence Williams and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2017-02-07 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Highly informative and remarkably entertaining." —Elle From forest trails in Korea, to islands in Finland, to eucalyptus groves in California, Florence Williams investigates the science behind nature’s positive effects on the brain. Delving into brand-new research, she uncovers the powers of the natural world to improve health, promote reflection and innovation, and strengthen our relationships. As our modern lives shift dramatically indoors, these ideas—and the answers they yield—are more urgent than ever.
