Spirit of the Environment brings spiritual and religious concerns to environmental issues. Providing a much needed alternative to exploring human beings' relationship to the natural world through the restrictive lenses of 'science', 'ecology', or even 'morality', this book offers a fresh perspective to the field. Spirit of the Enironment addresses: * the environmental attitudes of the major religions; * the relationship between art and nature; * the Gaia hypothesis; * the non-instrumental values which have inspired environmental concern. Contributors range from (...) a variety of disciplines including philosophy, comparative religion, education and social anthropology, providing students with an intriguing survey on the role that spirituality and religion play in nature. This is a vital collection for those eager to examine the relationship between the spiritual and the environment. (shrink)

Faking Nature explores the arguments surrounding the concept of ecological restoration. This is a crucial process in the modern world and is central to companies' environmental policy; whether areas restored after ecological destruction are less valuable than before the damage took place. Elliot discusses the pros and cons of the argument and examines the role of humans in the natural world. This volume is a timely and provocative analysis of the simultaneous destruction and restoration of the natural world and the (...) ethics related to those processes, in an era of accelerated environmental damage and repair. (shrink)

Provides a set of normative measure sto assess the value of nature and proposes the new discipline of foundational ecology as a response to environmental crisis.

This chapter contains sections titled: Moral Philosophy Moral Education.

This paper aims to explore the relationship between humans and nature and the implied intimacy, so-call ‘ecophilia,’ in light of the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty. It is revealed from the Merleau-Pontian view of body and nature that there may be a more harmonious relationship between humankind and nature than the commonly assumed, and an alternative understanding of education may thus arise. Following an introduction, this paper falls into three parts: an exploration of the meaning of nature, the corporeality of the (...) body as central to our encounter with nature and the educational implications. The introduction argues that central to one’s understanding of nature is one’s understanding of oneself and the world. To some extent, our current environmental problems are related to a negative understanding of nature. The meaning of nature and our relationship with it will be elaborated by the exploration of the key significance of body to be found in Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy. It will be argued that overall, our understanding of the body may be central to reconnecting humankind and nature. Such a re-conceiving of the part played by the body in our relationship with nature may re-orient education towards a love of nature: ecophilia. (shrink)

This is a very short introduction to ethics. It divides into three parts: first, introducing and discussing reasons for skepticism about ethics; second introducing themes of birth, death, happiness, desire and freedom to show how deeply our lives are interwoven with ethics; third, introducing attempts to found ethics, due to Aristotle, Kant, and the contractarian tradition.

Environmentalists express concern at the destruction/exploitation of areas of the natural environment because they believe that those areas are of intrinsic value. An emerging response is to argue that natural areas may have their value restored by means of the techniques of environmental engineering. It is then claimed that the concern of environmentalists is irrational, merely emotional or even straightforwardly selfish. This essay argues that there is a dimension of value attaching to the natural environment which cannot be restored no (...) matter how technologically proficient environmental engineers become. The argument involves highlighting and discussing analogies between faking art and faking nature. The pivot of the argument is the claim that genesis is a significant determinant of an area's value. (shrink)

The question concerning technology.--The turning.--The word of Nietzsche: "God is dead."--The age of the world picture.--Science and reflection.

This book offers a critical and thought-provoking analysis of some of the fundamental questions about the nature and purpose of education. It includes ideas such as the demands of pluralism and the liberal fear of indoctrination.

Integrity : a shared moral value -- Religion, nature and intuition as possible sources of moral truth -- Some distinctions and some mistakes -- Rights and procedures -- Principles that define morality -- Reasons for being moral -- Relativism -- Second order principles -- Moral vs. social, ecological and sexual values -- Moral vs. health and safety values -- Moral questions in education -- The question of moral education -- Forms of moral education.

In this much-anticipated book, Jonathan Dancy offers the only available full-scale treatment of particularism in ethics, a view with which he has been associated for twenty years. Dancy now presents particularism as the view that the possibility of moral thought and judgement does not in any way depend on an adequate supply of principles. He grounds this claim on a form of reasons-holism, holding that what is a reason in one case need not be any reason in another, and maintaining (...) that moral reasons are no different in this respect from others. Ethics Without Principles offers detailed treatment and criticism of opposing positions of all sorts, with useful summaries. It also contains three chapters on the nature of what Dancy calls 'contributory' reasons, which, though the topic of much interest at the moment, are not often discussed in anything like the detail given here. And it offers a distinctive form of value-holism to go with the holism of reasons. As Dancy's definitive statement on particularism, the book will be required reading for all those working on moral philosophy and ethical theory. (shrink)

From political scandals at the highest levels to inflated repair bills at the local garage, we are seemingly surrounded with unethical behavior, so why should we behave any differently? Why should we go through life anchored down by rules no one else seems to follow? Writing with wit and elegance, Simon Blackburn tackles such questions in this lively look at ethics, highlighting the complications and doubts and troubling issues that spring from the very simple question of how we ought to (...) live. Blackburn dissects many common reasons why we are skeptical about ethics. Drawing on all-too-familiar examples from history, politics, religion and everyday personal experience, he shows how cynicism and self-consciousness can paralyze us into considering ethics a hopeless pursuit. But ethics is neither futile nor irrelevant, he assures us, but an intimate part of the nitty gritty issues of living--of birth, death, happiness, desire, freedom, pleasure, justice. Indeed, from moral dilemmas about abortion and euthanasia, to our obsession with personal rights, to our longing for a sense of meaning in life, our everyday struggles are rife with ethical issues, whether we notice it or not. Blackburn distills the arguments of Hume, Kant and Aristotle down to their essences, to underscore the timeless relevance of our voice of conscience, the pitfalls of complacency, and our concerns about truth, knowledge and human progress. Blackburn's rare combination of depth, rigor and sparkling prose, and his distinguished ranking among contemporary philosophers, mark Being Good as an important statement on our current disenchantment with ethics. It challenges us to take a more thoughtful reading of our ethical climate and to ponder more carefully our own standards of behavior. (shrink)

'This is an excellent book. It addresses what, in both conceptual and political terms, is arguably the most important source of tension and confusion in current arguments about the environment, namely the concept of nature; and it does so in a way that is both sensitive to, and critical of, the two antithetical ways of understanding this that dominate existing discussions.' Russell Keat, University of Edinburgh.

IN THE winter and spring of 1031,1 was invited to give a series of ten lectures at Harvard University. The subject chosen was the Philosophy of Art; the lectures are the origin of the present volume. The Lectureship was founded in memory of William James and I esteem it a great honor to have this book associated even indirectly with his distinguished name. It is a pleasure, also, te recall, in connection with the lectures, the unvarying kindness and hospitality of (...) my colleagues in the department of philosophy at Harvard. I am somewhat embarrassed in an effort to acknowledge indebtedness to other writers on the subject. Some aspects of it may be inferred from authors mentioned or quoted in the text. I have read on the subject for many years, however, more or less widely in English literature, somewhat less in French and still less in German, and I have absorbed much from sources which I cannot now directly recall. Moreover, my obligations to a number of writers are much greater than might be gathered from allusions to them in the volume itself. My indebtedness to those who have helped me directly can be more easily stated. Dr. Joseph Ratner gave me a number of valuable references. Dr. Meyer Schapiro was good enough to read the twelfth and thirteenth chapters and to make suggestions which I have freely adopted. Irwin Edman read a large part of the book in manuscript and I owe much to his suggestions and criticism. Sidney Hook read many of the chapters, and their present form is largely the result of discussions with him; this statement is especially true of the chapters on criticism and the last chapter. My greatest indebtedness is to Dr. A. C. Barnes. The chaptershave been gone over one by one with him, and yet what I owe to his comments and suggestions on this account is but a small measure of my debt. I have had the benefit of con versations with him through a period of years, many of which occurred in the presence of the unrivaled collection of pictures he has assembled. The influence of these conversations, together with that of his books, has been a chief factor in shapingmy own thinking about the philosophy of esthetics. Whatever is sound in this volume is due more than I can say to the great educational work carried on in the Barnes Foundation. That work is of a pioneer quality comparable to the best that has been done in any field during the present generation, that of science not ex cepted. I should be glad to think of this volume as one phase of the widespread influence the Foundation is exercising. I am indebted to the Barnes Foundation for permission to reproduce a number of illustrations and to Barbara and Willard Morgan for the photographs from which the reproductions were made. J. D. (shrink)

Based on John Dewey's lectures on esthetics, delivered as the first William James Lecturer at Harvard in 1932, Art as Experience has grown to be considered internationally as the most distinguished work ever written by an American on the formal structure and characteristic effects of all the arts: architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and literature.

We are only beginning to understand the significance of the issues which our environmental situation raises, and their implications for philosophy of education have yet to receive the depth of consideration they merit. This paper argues that certain strands of environmental concern invite us to reconsider the metaphysical basis of education. Having identified some senses in which education is properly construed as metaphysical, it explores questions posed for the conceptions of knowledge, truth, personhood and morality in which education is rooted, (...) and for the versions of reality and the relationship to nature in which it invites pupils to participate. (shrink)

A work first published in English in 1951, _Waiting on God _forms the best possible introduction to the work of Simone Weil, for it brings us into direct contact with this amazing personality, at once so pure, so ardent, so utterly sincere, yet normally so reserved that only her closest friends guessed the secrets of her inner life. The first part of the book concerns her letters written to the Reverend Father Perrin, O.P., who befriended her at Marseilles and, the (...) only priest she knew, became her intimate friend. The second part of the book concerns essays and reflections on such subjects as education, human affliction and the love of God, prayer, and forms of the implicit love of God. (shrink)

Considerations arising in the context of burgeoning concerns about the environment can provoke an exploration of issues that have significance both for environmental education in particular and education more generally. Notions of the ‘greater whole’ and ‘systemic wisdom’ that feature in some strands of environmental discourse are a case in point. It is argued that interpretations of these notions arising in currently influential scientific and systems thinking understandings of nature that attempt to overcome a corrosive separation of humankind and nature (...) through a dilution or dismissal of the distinction between the human and non-human, self and other, require critical evaluation if they are not to bring their own dangers. Merleau-Pontian understandings of object constitution in a subjectively informed life-world and ideas of the ‘selving’ of natural things are drawn upon in developing a non-discursively grounded interpretation of systemic wisdom. The latter is taken to raise questions that have considerable transformative potential for conventional views of knowledge and its curriculum organisation. (shrink)

I. Nature as a System of Production and Reproduction 1. Animal Sociology and a Natural Economy of the Body Politic 2. The Past Is the Contested Zone 3. The Biological Enterprise II. Contested Readings: Narrative Natures 4. In the Beginning Was the Word 5. The Contest for Primate Nature 6. Reading Buchi Emecheta III. Differential Politics of Innappropriate/d Others 7. ’Gender’ for a Marxist Dictionary 8. A Cyborg Manifesto 9. Situated Knowledges 10. The Biopolitics of Postmodern Bodies.

A work first published in English in 1951, Waiting on God forms the best possible introduction to the work of Simone Weil, for it brings us into direct contact with this amazing personality, at once so pure, so ardent, so utterly sincere, yet normally so reserved that only her closest friends guessed the secrets of her inner life. The first part of the book concerns her letters written to the Reverend Father Perrin, O.P., who befriended her at Marseilles and, the (...) only priest she knew, became her intimate friend. The second part of the book concerns essays and reflections on such subjects as education, human affliction and the love of God, prayer, and forms of the implicit love of God. (shrink)