Daoism, Natural Life, and Human Flourishing

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David E. Cooper
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Ethic ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
The World ◽  
Real Change ◽  
Life Force ◽  
Natural Life

The chapter begins with a discussion of Daoist virtues that lead to human flourishing and the Daoist conception of how a life goes well, what it shows about, and implies for, people’s relationship to the natural world of plants, animals, and environment. Humans are not distinct from these other life forms; rather, they are all “living beings” composed of qi (vital energy or life force). Qualities such as ziran (spontaneity or naturalness) lead to a relationship with animals characterized by care and nurture. According to the chapter, Daoists are more likely to be “responsible gardeners, farmers, and foresters” than “eco-warriors.” Nevertheless, the environmental ethic inspired by this tradition shows promise for creating real change in the world.

A Māori Girl Watches, Listens, and Learns – Coming of Age from an Indigenous Viewpoint: Mauri (Merata Mita, 1988)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alistair Fox
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous People ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Feature Film ◽  
Indigenous Woman ◽  
Spiritual Dimension ◽  
The World ◽  
Life Force ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter examines Merata Mita’s Mauri, the first fiction feature film in the world to be solely written and directed by an indigenous woman, as an example of “Fourth Cinema” – that is, a form of filmmaking that aims to create, produce, and transmit the stories of indigenous people, and in their own image – showing how Mita presents the coming-of-age story of a Māori girl who grows into an understanding of the spiritual dimension of the relationship of her people to the natural world, and to the ancestors who have preceded them. The discussion demonstrates how the film adopts storytelling procedures that reflect a distinctively Māori view of time and are designed to signify the presence of the mauri (or life force) in the Māori world.

scholarly journals Healing and Rebalancing in the Aftermath of Colonial Violence: An Indigenous-Informed, Response-Based Approach

Genealogy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 69
Author(s):  
Catherine Richardson (Kinewesquao) ◽  
Kenna Aviles-Betel ◽  
Zeina Ismail-Allouche ◽  
Véronique Picard
Keyword(s):  
Healing Process ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Social Responses ◽  
The World ◽  
Cultural Processes ◽  
Scientific Approach ◽  
Life Force ◽  
Right Relationship ◽  
Justice And Care

What is understood as “healing” is often culturally and socially embedded. One’s culture helps to define what it means to be well or unwell, and what it means to heal or recover. Sometimes, one’s culture sits in contrast to the mainstream, western scientific approach to health, often seen as the freedom from illness. A Métis worldview is holistic in itself, and it incorporates notions and practices of well-being that go beyond just being “illness or problem free”. Wellbeing is often directly linked to our relationship with the food that sustains us, to the various animal and plant worlds, to the elements, and to being in “right relationship” to the world and others. Dr. Catherine Richardson Kinewesquao presents an approach to healing which she refers to as transformative, energetic and spiritual. She draws from Cree teachings related to “mamatowisowin”, the life force inherent in all beings and the act of calling forth this energy into the healing process. This life force is connected to dignity, justice and care. Metaphorically, it can be talked about as being released or made available when an individual opens to discussing/facing fears and sorrows, distressing events and losses, and to finding a way to integrate them into their whole being. It is a form of energy transmutation, of becoming more emotionally fluid and liberated from the negativity of what is “acting upon them”. When energy is unblocked or released, particularly in the presence of a compassionate listener, the person may then have more energy for their chosen life projects. By using a response-based approach in the aftermath of violence and degradation, and by contextualizing events through exploratory conversations, one may transform stress into productive energy to fuel life, growth and action. Kinewesquao articulates the use of cultural processes for stress management and working with the natural world to enhance well-being. Ultimately, she makes a case that “positive social responses” (e.g., love, care, compassionate listening, support and cultural rituals) to one’s suffering can be some of the best healing medicines.

scholarly journals Environmental Ethics: Catalyst for Human/ Nature Relationship in “A White Heron”

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-172
Author(s):  
Yashoda Chaulagain
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Natural Domain ◽  
The World ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Mother Earth ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City

All the life forms have fundamental right to live in this universe. Human beings have duties, rights, and responsibilities towards the non-humans, and natural world. By not having a systematic and comprehensive account regarding the relationship between humans and the natural world, human beings are denying the importance of the life forms of other creatures in the world. Hence, the present research attempts to analyze the biocentric relationship of human beings with nature and its stewardship by being aware and knowledgeable of the world around them and protecting the world species. The study further argues the cooperative mechanism and symbiotic relationship between nature and human beings in this natural domain with reference to Jewett’s protagonist, Sylvia, who represents the symbol of mother earth by saving White Heron from the hunter. She restricts the Hunter to mastery over it. In addition, the work encompasses the conflict of nature with civilization by portraying the relationship of Sylvia, who preserves nature, from a foreigner, the Hunter who is concomitant with the danger of civilization. The Hunter who tracks the White Heron is from the city and hence stained by civilizations, sees nature is a place to exploit and desires the White Heron as another piece of his collection. In this sense, Sylvia represents herself true lover and preserver of the natural world and the Hunter is considered in complete opposition to the tranquility of the woodland.

JAK LUDOBÓJSTWO ZOSTAŁO UZNANE ZA ZBRODNIĘ – DZIEDZICTWO RAFAŁA LEMKINA

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 69-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam MCFARLAND ◽  
Katarzyna HAMER
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Genocide Convention ◽  
Entire Life ◽  
War Crimes Trials ◽  
Criminal Charge ◽  
Short Biography ◽  
The World ◽  
Real Change ◽  
History Of

Raphael Lemkin is hardly known to a Polish audiences. One of the most honored Poles of theXX century, forever revered in the history of human rights, nominated six times for the Nobel PeacePrize, Lemkin sacrificed his entire life to make a real change in the world: the creation of the term“genocide” and making it a crime under international law. How long was his struggle to establishwhat we now take as obvious, what we now take for granted?This paper offers his short biography, showing his long road from realizing that the killing oneperson was considered a murder but that under international law in 1930s the killing a million wasnot. Through coining the term “genocide” in 1944, he helped make genocide a criminal charge atthe Nuremburg war crimes trials of Nazi leaders in late 1945, although there the crime of genocidedid not cover killing whole tribes when committed on inhabitants of the same country nor when notduring war. He next lobbied the new United Nations to adopt a resolution that genocide is a crimeunder international law, which it adopted on 11 December, 1946. Although not a U.N. delegate – hewas “Totally Unofficial,” the title of his autobiography – Lemkin then led the U.N. in creating theConvention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted 9 December, 1948.Until his death in 1958, Lemkin lobbied tirelessly to get other U.N. states to ratify the Convention.His legacy is that, as of 2015, 147 U.N. states have done so, 46 still on hold. His tomb inscriptionreads simply, “Dr. Raphael Lemkin (1900–1959), Father of the Genocide Convention”. Without himthe world as we know it, would not be possible.

Varieties of Understanding

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural World ◽  
Cognitive Resources ◽  
The World ◽  
Historical Tradition ◽  
Normative Considerations ◽  
Shed Light

According to a long historical tradition, understanding comes in different varieties. In particular, it is said that understanding people has a different epistemic profile than understanding the natural world—it calls on different cognitive resources, for instance, and brings to bear distinctive normative considerations. Thus in order to understand people we might need to appreciate, or in some way sympathetically reconstruct, the reasons that led a person to act in a certain way. By comparison, when it comes to understanding natural events, like earthquakes or eclipses, no appreciation of reasons or acts of sympathetic reconstruction is arguably needed—mainly because there are no reasons on the scene to even be appreciated, and no perspectives to be sympathetically pieced together. In this volume some of the world’s leading philosophers, psychologists, and theologians shed light on the various ways in which we understand the world, pushing debates on this issue to new levels of sophistication and insight.

Fundamentality

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Healey
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Theory ◽  
High Energy Physics ◽  
Physical Property ◽  
Natural World ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Quantum Field Theories ◽  
Fundamental Physics ◽  
The World ◽  
Energy Physics

The metaphor that fundamental physics is concerned to say what the natural world is like at the deepest level may be cashed out in terms of entities, properties, or laws. The role of quantum field theories in the Standard Model of high-energy physics suggests that fundamental entities, properties, and laws are to be sought in these theories. But the contextual ontology proposed in Chapter 12 would support no unified compositional structure for the world; a quantum state assignment specifies no physical property distribution sufficient even to determine all physical facts; and quantum theory posits no fundamental laws of time evolution, whether deterministic or stochastic. Quantum theory has made a revolutionary contribution to fundamental physics because its principles have permitted tremendous unification of science through the successful application of models constructed in conformity to them: but these models do not say what the world is like at the deepest level.

Beyond Concepts

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Garrett Millikan
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Conceptual Development ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Language Function ◽  
Natural Signs ◽  
Transmission Of Information ◽  
The World ◽  
Natural Information ◽  
Natural Ontology

This book weaves together themes from natural ontology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language and information, areas of inquiry that have not recently been treated together. The sprawling topic is Kant’s how is knowledge possible? but viewed from a contemporary naturalist standpoint. The assumption is that we are evolved creatures that use cognition as a guide in dealing with the natural world, and that the natural world is roughly as natural science has tried to describe it. Very unlike Kant, then, we must begin with ontology, with a rough understanding of what the world is like prior to cognition, only later developing theories about the nature of cognition within that world and how it manages to reflect the rest of nature. And in trying to get from ontology to cognition we must traverse another non-Kantian domain: questions about the transmission of information both through natural signs and through purposeful signs including, especially, language. Novelties are the introduction of unitrackers and unicepts whose job is to recognize the same again as manifested through the jargon of experience, a direct reference theory for common nouns and other extensional terms, a naturalist sketch of uniceptual—roughly conceptual— development, a theory of natural information and of language function that shows how properly functioning language carries natural information, a novel description of the semantics/pragmatics distinction, a discussion of perception as translation from natural informational signs, new descriptions of indexicals and demonstratives and of intensional contexts and a new analysis of the reference of incomplete descriptions.

How is science to be carried forward, and its conclusions reported?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Briggs ◽  
Hans Halvorson ◽  
Andrew Steane
Keyword(s):  
Mathematical Proof ◽  
Good Practice ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Component Part ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Scientific Publications ◽  
Direct Role ◽  
Intellectual Activity ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
The World

The chapter appraises science as an intellectual activity that is appropriately carried out on its own terms. Consequently, it is not appropriate to introduce references to God as a component part of a mathematical proof, nor of a system of forces in the natural world, nor of a sequence of impersonal processes in the biosphere. This does not mean that it is inappropriate to be thankful to God and to celebrate all these aspects of the world as gifts. They can be employed as opportunities to express appreciation through studying and understanding them better in their own right. Nevertheless, there may be processes, such as those which shape a person’s self-identity, in which it is appropriate to recognize God’s more direct role. Good practice concerning acknowledgements sections in scientific publications such as doctoral theses and journal articles is then discussed.

A Passage Theory of Time

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin A. Lipman
Keyword(s):  
Necessary Conditions ◽  
Fragmented Structure ◽  
The World ◽  
Real Change ◽  
Primitive Notion

This paper proposes a theory of time that takes the notion of passage as its basic primitive. Any notion of passage that is worthy of that name should make for real change across time. It is argued that real change across time in turn requires the obtaining of incompatible facts. The proposed theory will therefore be a form of fragmentalism, which makes room for the obtaining of incompatible facts by taking the world to exhibit a type of fragmented structure. The preferred form of fragmentalism and the primitive notion of passage are elucidated in some detail. It is argued that the resulting picture resolves the problem of change and meets the puzzling yet necessary conditions for the reality of passage

Reclaiming the System

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Herzog
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Structures ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
The Public ◽  
Organizational Role ◽  
Individual Agency ◽  
System P ◽  
The World ◽  
Just Society ◽  
Globalized World

The world of wage labour seems to have become a soulless machine, an engine of social and environmental destruction. Employees seem to be nothing but ‘cogs’ in this system—but is this true? Located at the intersection of political theory, moral philosophy, and business ethics, this book questions the picture of the world of work as a ‘system’. Hierarchical organizations, both in the public and in the private sphere, have specific features of their own. This does not mean, however, that they cannot leave room for moral responsibility, and maybe even human flourishing. Drawing on detailed empirical case studies, Lisa Herzog analyses the nature of organizations from a normative perspective: their rule-bound character, the ways in which they deal with divided knowledge, and organizational cultures and their relation to morality. She asks how individual agency and organizational structures would have to mesh to avoid common moral pitfalls. She develops the notion of ‘transformational agency’, which refers to a critical, creative way of engaging with one’s organizational role while remaining committed to basic moral norms. The last part zooms out to the political and institutional changes that would be required to re-embed organizations into a just society. Whether we submit to ‘the system’ or try to reclaim it, Herzog argues, is a question of eminent political importance in our globalized world.

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