Working within a framework of environmental philosophy and environmental ethics, this book describes and postulates alternative understandings of nature in Indian traditions of thought, particularly philosophy. The interest in alternative conceptualizations of nature has gained significance after many thinkers pointed out that attitudes to the environment are determined to a large extent by our presuppositions of nature. This book is particularly timely from that perspective. It begins with a brief description of the concept of nature and a history of the (...) idea of nature in Western thought. This provides readers with a context to the issues around the concept of nature in environmental philosophy, setting a foundation for further discussion about alternate conceptualizations of nature and their significance. In particular, the work covers a wide array of textual and non-textual sources to link and understand nature from classical Indian philosophical perspectives as well as popular understandings in Indian literary texts and cultural practices. Popular issues in environmental philosophy are discussed in detail, such as: What is ‘nature’ in Indian philosophy? How do people perceive nature through landscape and mythological and cultural narratives? In what ways is nature sacred in India? To make the discussion relevant to contemporary readers, the book includes a section on the ecological and ethical implications of some philosophical concepts and critical perspectives on alternate conceptualizations of nature. (shrink)

The dual-aspect monist conjecture launched by Pauli and Jung in the mid-20th century will be couched in somewhat formal terms to characterize it more concisely than by verbal description alone. After some background material situating the Pauli–Jung conjecture among other conceptual approaches to the mind–matter problem, the main body of this paper outlines its general framework of a basic psychophysically neutral reality with its derivative mental and physical aspects and the nature of the correlations that connect these aspects. Some related (...) approaches are discussed to identify key similarities to and deviations from the Pauli–Jung framework that may be useful for cross-fertilization. (shrink)

Although Gołuchowski was inspired mainly by Schelling, he was well acquainted with the views of other German idealist thinkers, including Hegel. Referring to Gołuchowski’s early works, as well as to his last book Dumania nad najwyższemi zagadnieniami człowieka (“Thoughts about the highest human issues”, published posthumously in 1861), I will discuss the main Hegelian motifs in his philosophy and their relationship to the Schellingian “basis” of his thought. I will also consider the main motifs of Gołuchowski’s critique of Hegel’s system (...) which can be treated – at least to some extent – as belonging to the revision of the assumptions of Hegelian absolute idealism made by such Polish adherents of Hegel’s philosophy as Trentowski, Libelt or Cieszkowski. (shrink)