Stoicism and the Natural World

2018 ◽  
pp. 676-698
Author(s):  
Teun Tieleman
Keyword(s):  
Applied Sciences ◽  
Special Reference ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Historical Outline ◽  
The World ◽  
Preceding Discussion ◽  
The Individual

The chapter discusses the natural philosophy of the ancient Stoics including the attitude they took towards the so-called special and applied sciences (technai). After a historical outline introducing the main facts and personalities (sec. 1), the role and status of natural philosophy within the Stoic system are explained, with special reference to the moral and theological dimension of the study of nature, that is, the Stoic view of the world as a rationally structured and providentially determined whole and what this view implies for our way of living (sec. 2). Two subsequent sections are concerned with Stoic materialist physics on both the universal (macrocosmic) and the individual (microcosmic) level respectively (sec. 3 and sec. 4). The next section is specifically devoted to exploring Stoic views on, and involvement with, applied sciences and arts such as astronomy, mathematics and medicine (sec. 5). The Epilogue sums up the main results from the preceding discussion (sec. 6).

Identity, Community and the Natural Environment: Some Perspectives from Process Thinking

1998 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 257-267
Author(s):  
Clare Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Natural Environment ◽  
Natural World ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Human Community ◽  
Process Thinking ◽  
The World ◽  
Self Differentiation ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Over Time

AbstractAlfred North Whitehead's and Charles Hartshorne's process thinking presents a complex and sophisticated metaphysical underpinning for a theory of self and self-identity. Their construction of the self has significant implications for understanding of the (human) community and the natural environment. Process thinking, I argue, undercuts the idea of self unity; of self-continuity over time; and of self-differentiation from the world. When combined, these three elements mean that it is hard to separate the individual, personal self from the community and the natural world. I compare these implications from process thinking with what might seem similar implications from radical ecological philosophies. Although there are ethical and metaphysical differences between process thinkers and deep ecologists, both kinds of theory need to be treated with caution in application to our thinking about the environment.

scholarly journals Chaos & Creation: Adam van Vianen's Gilt Ewer

2021 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 196-215
Author(s):  
Jessica Whittle
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Artistic Creation ◽  
The World ◽  
Melting Surface ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Careful Design

With its bizarre melting surface and the solid forms emerging out of it, this seventeenth-century ewer by the goldsmith Adam van Vianen arouses curiosity and invites investigation. Commissioned in memory of his brother, Paulus van Vianen, who largely developed the auricular style perfected in it, this ewer is a work that rewards exploration – the more you investigate the more there is to see and be delighted by. The incredibly complicated construction of this piece attests to evident careful design and intent in every form in it, raising the question as to their individual meaning and the message they convey as a whole. This study answers the ewer’s call to curiosity by investigating the meanings of the individual forms and the commonalities that connect them as a group. The result is a surprising journey into the world of seventeenth-century alchemy, natural philosophy and Kunstkammers. Research into the iconographical meaning of both the visible forms and the folding surface in the context in which it was created has led the author of this analysis to conclude that the ewer functions as an allegory for the process of artistic creation, visualizing the artist bringing life into the world out of chaos.

THE ECOLOGICAL EDUCATION OF THE 5- TO 6- YEAR-OLD CHILDREN IN THE CONTEXT OF THE COMPETENCE PARADIGM

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 1085-1091
Author(s):  
Petya Konakchieva
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Interactive Systems ◽  
Ecological Education ◽  
Research Activity ◽  
Sustainable Environment ◽  
The World ◽  
Cognitive Information ◽  
Ecological Culture ◽  
The Individual

The elaboration presents conceptual and content aspects of an author’s model for educating ecological culture in introducing 5- to 6- year-old children into the natural world. The need for new interactive systems for environmental education in childhood is being defended. The vectors of pre-school ecological education and schooling are brought forth, they are addressed through the cognitive-information, personal, cultural and competence paradigms. The structure of the competence conceptual idea in pre-school ecological education is specified. In the context of the European educational priorities for early preparation and presentation of natural science competences, the basic principles that make up the model of “Molivko – I play and I know. Environmental studies” are brought out; it is designed to introduce 5- to 6-year-olds into the world of nature. They require cognitive and informational stimulation of personal experience in orientation in the natural world, empirically-active behavioural and communication regulation in the socio-environmental surroundings, model-situational systematization of ideas for maintaining a sustainable environment, reflexive-emotional attitude to the picture of the world of nature of the individual. Accordingly, the goal of the pedagogical interaction “child – nature”, which is referred to the initial stage of compulsory pre-school education, is set out. The integrative aspects of the author’s model related to game, socialization, knowledge, communication, safety, health, physical culture, labour and artistic creativity are set. The content accents of the model system, built up by adapting key concepts and skills related to bio-ecology, social and applied ecology, which in their unity guarantee the cognitive basis of the children’s ecological culture, are specified. Methodological ideas and solutions, laid down in the applied-educational provision of the author’s system are interpreted. Emphasis is placed on the inclusion of an accessible practice-transforming research activity, participation in modelling activities, children’s presentation and discussion with environmental content, collection, project activity. They are achieved through viewing, demonstration, multimedia presentations, talk, storytelling, reading of artistic works, didactic games, exercises, elementary experiments, modelling, staging, etudes, cases, etc. They are guaranteed by educational interaction, which presupposes the achievement of educational trends for key natural-science competences in the third age group, theoretically set and covered in applied-education field.

scholarly journals Gardens in “Trilistniks” (trefoils) by I. Annensky (on “real” and symbolic meaning of the image)

2021 ◽  
Vol 61 ◽  
pp. 166-176
Author(s):  
Yulia V. Shevchuk
Keyword(s):  
Fairy Tale ◽  
Personal Space ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Closed Space ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Lyrical Subject ◽  
Perception Of Time ◽  
The Individual

The development of garden space at Annensky contributes to an understanding of the individual symbolism of the poet and the principles of organizing semantic unity of the “Trilistniks” (trefoils). In the first trilistniks, the subject occupies an ambivalent position of attraction and repulsion in relation to the garden space (flowers, birds, earth). The intensity of color and smell, as well as the principle of contrast, oxymoron, are important in the description. The garden refers to biblical mythology (“Trefoil of temptation”). Nature is renewed, and man cannot get rid of the burden of the “evil” past and the idea of inevitability of death (“Sentimental trefoil”). Observing the phenomenon of light and shade in the garden, the lyrical “I” thinks about the existence of the world simultaneously outside and inside a man (“Lunar trefoil”). The garden in the “Trefoil of doomness” dedicated to the perception of time is a closed space, “the door is clogged there.” Gardens are gradually growing dim, become flatter, empty and move inside the consciousness of a lyrical subject (sleep, nonsense, fiction). The flowers on the window, the dead garden and the sky are perceived as solid, frozen surfaces (“Ghostlike trefoil”). The image of the garden takes on fantastic features: the old manor is placed in the space of a fairy tale (“Trefoil from the old notebook”), shadows in the garden turn into ghosts of the past and are condensed (“Spring trefoil”). “Trefoil of the loneliness,” the last in the series, is dedicated to the issue of alienation of a modern man from natural world and people, the bright image of the garden (lilacs, sun, bees) is located outside the personal space of the “I.”

Science and Religion in America

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul J. Croce
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Professional Organization ◽  
Late 19Th Century ◽  
Ongoing Research ◽  
Separate Spheres ◽  
The World

Science and religion provide alternative ways to understand the world. In American history, they have each commanded authority at different times and for different people and groups based on the varying appeal of knowledge and belief, of inquiry and conviction, and of liberal and traditionalist values. Science and religion have interacted with each other in many ways ranging from widespread harmony between them until the late 19th century to a spectrum of interactions that have included conflict, separation, integration of their insights, and spiritual kinship. Colonial American science was dominated by religion, both in the concentration of ministers practicing what was then called natural philosophy and in the conviction that such inquiries would inevitably support religious truths. Common Sense philosophy articulated this calm confidence and buttressed the assurance of harmony between science and religion that dominated until the 1860s. However, even during this period, the tremendous growth in scientific information strained the harmonious relations of science and religion. Darwinism presented the most significant challenge to traditional religion by inaugurating a new approach to science: it was a theory supported by probabilistic plausibility rather than deterministic proof; Darwinian theory served as a synthetic framework for organizing natural facts and ongoing research, and its investigations did not require religious assumptions. Since the late 19th century, science began to grow still more rapidly with greater professional organization and specialized investigations into a vast amount of information about the natural world, while religion became more pluralistic and more private on the American scene. With their distinct social and intellectual paths, science and religion could no longer operate with assumed harmony. Some advocates of each field took this as a reason to understand them in sharp conflict, however many more sought to renew their harmony, but on new, more intricate and diverse terms. The simplest ground for harmony, consideration of each domain in separate spheres, was suggested by their very distinct practices. However, when the very inquiries and reflections of these fields spilled beyond each of their own domains, other practitioners and observers in science and religion comprehended them in relation, with science adapting to religious questions or religion adopting scientific answers. For those who sought still deeper integration, inquiry about the relation of science and religion took them beyond the mainstreams in both fields for embrace of their spiritual kinship. The varied methods and insights championed by science and religion have provided Americans with their deepest guideposts for being and doing: these fields supply varied paths of inquiry and conviction for comprehending the deepest character of the world and for choosing ways of living.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Healey
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Quantum Entanglement ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Special Role ◽  
The World ◽  
Action At A Distance ◽  
Quantum Revolution

Quantum theory does not describe the world and so contributes little to natural philosophy: it implies neither that a particle can be in two places at once, that a cat can be neither dead nor alive, that there is instantaneous action at a distance, nor that our observations create the world they reveal. Quantum entanglement does not say that the world is radically holist or non-separable, that the world is indeterministic or deterministic, that mind influences matter, or that consciousness plays a special role in the natural world. But the theory does have lessons to teach about how philosophy should approach topics including causation, probability, laws, composition, and ontology that traditionally fall within metaphysics. Here the quantum revolution reinforces the pragmatist lesson that such topics are best approached by asking why agents like us should have developed the concepts we have when physically situated in a world like this.

scholarly journals NATURAL PHILOSOPHY IN PERSONALITY’S WORLDVIEW

2020 ◽  
pp. 46-59
Author(s):  
Halyna Berehova
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Intellectual Discourse ◽  
World Outlook ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
The Way

The article claims that the assimilation of knowledge from the natural philosophy should help future professionals to form worldviews in the range of "man - nature", namely: to grasp the integrity of nature and its fundamentality rationally, to comprehend nature as a general, limiting concept that explains the scheme of understanding individual things; as a regulatory idea that allows us to understand all things and all objects in their unity and in different forms, to build a rational scientific picture of the world, by filling in the data of natural science and discovering the internal principles of interconnection and determination of things, to reveal different levels of nature as a whole – from inorganic nature to life in general and human life in particular. It is a fragment of a pragmatist-instrumentalist philosophicaleducational system, which consists in effective purposeful influence on the individual through a specific tool - philosophical knowledge. Here, natural philosophy becomes an instrument of intellectual discourse of the individual, and its study is a pragma (action) on the way to forming the world outlook of the individual and the universal picture of the world. It is the natural and philosophical knowledge that shapes the worldviews of the new (modern) personality, helping to understand the totality of the objective conditions of humanity's existence and to define its survival as a pressing problem of the present.

Nature, Formative Power and Intellect in the Natural Philosophy of Albert the Great

2008 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 451-481 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Takahashi
Keyword(s):  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Natural World ◽  
The Core ◽  
Albert The Great ◽  
The World ◽  
Celestial Bodies ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThe Dominican theologian Albert the Great (ca. 1200-1280) was one of the first to investigate into the system of the world on the basis of an acquaintance with the entire Aristotelian corpus, which he read under the influence of Islamic philosophers. The present study aims to understand the core of Albert's natural philosophy. Albert's emblematic phrase, “every work of nature is the work of intelligence” (omne opus naturae est opus intelligentiae), expresses the conviction that natural things are produced by the intellects that move the celestial bodies, just as houses are made by architects moving their instruments. Albert tried to fathom the secret of generation of natural things with his novel notion of “formative power” (virtus formativa), which flows from the celestial intellects into the sublunary elements. His conception of the natural world represents an alternative to the dominant medieval view on the relationship between the artificial and the natural.

New walls to keep the bad out: populism and the totalitarian psyche

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 120-130
Author(s):  
Coline Covington
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
Group Solidarity ◽  
Freedom Of Movement ◽  
Psychological Understanding ◽  
Psychic Development ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Cold War

The Berlin Wall came down on 9 November 1989 and marked the end of the Cold War. As old antagonisms thawed a new landscape emerged of unification and tolerance. Censorship was no longer the principal means of ensuring group solidarity. The crumbling bricks brought not only freedom of movement but freedom of thought. Now, nearly thirty years later, globalisation has created a new balance of power, disrupting borders and economies across the world. The groups that thought they were in power no longer have much of a say and are anxious about their future. As protest grows, we are beginning to see that the old antagonisms have not disappeared but are, in fact, resurfacing. This article will start by looking at the dissembling of a marriage in which the wall that had peacefully maintained coexistence disintegrates and leads to a psychic development that uncannily mirrors that of populism today. The individual vignette leads to a broader psychological understanding of the totalitarian dynamic that underlies populism and threatens once again to imprison us within its walls.

Virginia Woolf and Being-in-the-world

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Simone
Keyword(s):  
Virginia Woolf ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cartesian Dualism ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
The World ◽  
Binary Oppositions ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Existential Perspective

Virginia Woolf and Being-in-the-world: A Heideggerian Study explores Woolf’s treatment of the relationship between self and world from a phenomenological-existential perspective. This study presents a timely and compelling interpretation of Virginia Woolf’s textual treatment of the relationship between self and world from the perspective of the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. Drawing on Woolf’s novels, essays, reviews, letters, diary entries, short stories, and memoirs, the book explores the political and the ontological, as the individual’s connection to the world comes to be defined by an involvement and engagement that is always already situated within a particular physical, societal, and historical context. Emma Simone argues that at the heart of what it means to be an individual making his or her way in the world, the perspectives of Woolf and Heidegger are founded upon certain shared concerns, including the sustained critique of Cartesian dualism, particularly the resultant binary oppositions of subject and object, and self and Other; the understanding that the individual is a temporal being; an emphasis upon intersubjective relations insofar as Being-in-the-world is defined by Being-with-Others; and a consistent emphasis upon average everydayness as both determinative and representative of the individual’s relationship to and with the world.

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