Nature

2016 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 19 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Bellamy Foster
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Intrinsic Properties ◽  
De Rerum Natura ◽  
Material World ◽  
Complex Word ◽  
Monthly Review ◽  
The World ◽  
Raymond Williams

This article is adapted from John Bellamy Foster, "Nature," in Kelly Fritsch, Clare O'Connor, and AK Thompson, ed., Keywords for Radicals: The Contested Vocabulary of Late-Capitalist Struggle (Chico, CA: AK Press, 2016), 279-86, http://akpress.org/keywords-for-radicals.html."Nature," wrote Raymond Williams in Keywords, "is perhaps the most complex word in the language." It is derived from the Latin natura, as exemplified by Lucretius's great didactic poem De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things) from the first century BCE. The word "nature" has three primary, interrelated meanings: (1) the intrinsic properties or essence of things or processes; (2) an inherent force that directs or determines the world; and (3) the material world or universe, the object of our sense perceptions—both in its entirety and variously understood as including or excluding God, spirit, mind, human beings, society, history, culture, etc.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

1. Introduction

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theory ◽  
First Century ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Philosophy Of Nature ◽  
Roman Poet ◽  
De Rerum Natura ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
Conduct Of Life ◽  
Considerable Impact ◽  
The Universe

The ‘Introduction’ outlines the philosophy of Epicureanism and its founder, Epicurus (341–270 bce), and considers why it was so divisive and controversial. It explains how Epicureanism embodied a comprehensive set of teachings about nature and its living inhabitants, especially human beings. Epicurean prescriptions for the conduct of life and the attitudes to take towards love, friendship, death, and politics, were presented as following from fundamental truths about the constitution of the universe. The Roman poet Lucretius presented the Epicurean philosophy of nature in his first century bce De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), which had a considerable impact on science, anthropology, and moral theory when printed versions began to circulate in the 15th century.

Cosmopolitanism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Held ◽  
Pietro Maffettone
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
First Century ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Cultural Groups ◽  
Political Reality ◽  
Political Relationships ◽  
The World ◽  
Political Traditions ◽  
High Degree

Cosmopolitanism, in the broadest sense, is a way of thinking about the human condition. It portrays humanity as a universal fellowship. The unity to which cosmopolitans refer can be intellectual (we all share a capacity for reason), moral (we are all part of a single moral community), or institutional (we are all vulnerable to the same political evils and thus require shared collective solutions). The cosmopolitan intuition with its drive to highlight commonality is undoubtedly important. It understands that human beings are capable of an enormous range of good and bad, and attempts to embed human activity in a framework of common rules and norms; hence, it seeks to tame the potential for violent conflict. It tries to give us reasons to care for each other and to broaden our moral and intellectual universe beyond the remit of our personal ties and immediate environment. It offers a model of political action that confronts some of the most pressing challenges we face in the twenty-first century and does so by suggesting inclusive institutional solutions. Yet, cosmopolitanism would not be an attractive philosophical position if it did not consistently strive to address some of its underlying tensions. One of the most intensely shared elements of the human experience is particularity, not unity. We come to the world from families and social and cultural groups, and often develop our moral sensibilities within the framework of public discourses based on specific political traditions. Critics often contend that cosmopolitanism downplays such particularity and is thus unable to reflect one of the most important aspects of persons’ lives. A second encompassing objection leveled at cosmopolitanism is its high degree of utopianism. Cosmopolitanism, its critics contend, is a flight from political reality. Its plans for institutional reform are too abstract to be credible and neglect the importance of power in human political relationships. Cosmopolitans should accept these challenges. Their aim should be to make cosmopolitanism more attractive by explaining the place of special ties in their moral outlook, and to make it more credible by detailing the urgency of cosmopolitan political reform. The enduring success of a cosmopolitan ethos is thus partly reliant on cosmopolitans’ ability to provide convincing answers to these alleged weaknesses.

Cosmic Liturgy: The Theological Dignity of Creation as a Basis of an Orthodox Ecotheology

2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 332-344
Author(s):  
Daniel Munteanu
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Ecological Crisis ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Material World ◽  
New Creation ◽  
The World ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Orthodox Theology

AbstractOne of the most important contributions of Orthodox theology to ecotheology consists in its understanding of matter as an expression of the divine rationality. The logoi of the world are connected with the divine Logos and have an inner aspiration towards communion with God. Maximus Confessor’s view of the material world as potential church leads to a cosmic ecclesiology with direct significance for the overcoming of our contemporary ecological crisis. His theology of creatio originalis and of the new creation as transfigurated universe allows us to speak about the theological dignity of matter as the ‘home of God’, as well as a field of dialogue between creator and human beings. The Orthodox spirituality, as spirituality of theosis, of the transfiguration of matter through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is deeply ecological and, at the same time a source for a culture of healing communication, dialogue, love and respect of the ecosystems as expression of God’s rationality.

Transitions to and from Nature in Hegel and Plato

1992 ◽  
Vol 13 (02) ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary K Browning
Keyword(s):  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Material World ◽  
Absolute Idealism ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Organic Community ◽  
Explanatory Priority ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Philosophical Understanding

The philosophical understanding of nature is a key concern of both Plato and Hegel. Their elaborations of the identity and status of nature within their respective philosophies exhibit significant affinities to which Hegel himself draws attention in his Lectures on the History of Philosophy. Hegel and Plato, indeed, are fundamentally at one in theorizing nature as both displaying and obscuring the principles of reason which they take as providing the foundations of a coherent explanation of reality. In his lectures on the History of Philosophy Hegel takes great pains to emphasize the profundity of Plato's idealism as residing in its identification of the objectively real with the rational. Plato, according to Hegel, is to be revered, above all, for having “… grasped in all its truth Socrates' great principle that ultimate reality lies in consciousness, since according to him the absolute is in thought and all reality is thought.” The Timaeus, for Hegel, articulates how the world of nature is necessarily structured by reason, just as the Republic is seen by Hegel as providing a philosophical explanation of the rationality of the traditional, organic community of the Greek polis. Hegel's recognition of the Platonic foundations of his own version of “absolute” idealism in which the universality of thought assumes an explanatory priority over the material phenomena of nature as well as informing the spiritual activities of human beings has been noted, rightly, by a number of subsequent commentators. Michael Rosen, for instance, in his book, Hegel's Dialectic and Its Criticism, while carefully distinguishing between aspects of Hegel's and Plato's conceptions of nature, intimates the continuity of Hegel's idealism with Plato's by observing how Hegel's language in effecting a transition from the categories of pure thought in the Logic to the material world of nature constitutes an “… echo of Plato's Timaeus.” Certainly, Hegel's cryptic account of the transition from the Absolute Idea, the categorial terminus of the Logic's interrogation of the determinations of pure thought, to the externality and materiality of nature evokes Plato's construal of the construction of the world in the Timaeus, both by the indeterminate character of the God which is invoked, as well as by the clear subordination of material phenomena to a separately articulable order of reason. In the account of the construction of the world developed in the Timaeus, Plato deploys the image of the divine demiurge imparting order to the world by referring to a pre-existing pattern of ideas. Hegel conceives of the Absolute Idea which at the outset of the Philosophy of Nature he likens to God, as, “… freely releasing itself…” into the externality of space and time, in which movement the Idea is seen as suffering neither a transition within nor a deepening of its character such as the mediated categories of the Logic incur in the process of their integration within the Absolute Idea.

scholarly journals Jesus en vroue

1999 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yolanda Dreyer
Keyword(s):  
Kingdom Of God ◽  
Hierarchical System ◽  
First Century ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Patriarchal Family ◽  
Mediterranean Culture ◽  
The World

Jesus and women.The patriarchal view of reality in first-century Mediterranean culture wasbased on a disparity between man and woman. It was a hierarchical system in which man was considered to be above woman, as God is above human beings. In the world of Jesus a woman would be represented before God by the patriarch. This article illustrates how Jesus' words and deeds did not mirror the values of his culture as far as the importance and role of the patriarchal family were concerned. Jesus, words and deeds were unconvenional within a strict purity system. Jesus used family imagery when speaking about the kingdom of God, but he meant a different type of family than the physical family according to cultural conventions. His non-patriarchal interaction with women was an example and a consequence of his culture critique.

Teacher Quality in the Twenty-First Century

2016 ◽  
pp. 496-516 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Jon Byker ◽  
Tingting Xu ◽  
Juan Chen
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Preparation ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
First Century ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Quality Teachers ◽  
High Quality ◽  
International Perspectives ◽  
Technological Context ◽  
The World ◽  
Twenty First Century

In the twenty-first century, teachers and those who are preparing to become teachers are situated in a global and technological context. Such context necessitates that high quality teachers help to equip their learners to navigate an interconnected and interdependent world. Society's interconnectedness and interdependence means that the decisions made by an individual and a community affect the lives of other human beings around the world (Herrera, 2012). Being globally competent means understanding how the world is interrelated and the ways people can make a difference each other's lives. The purpose of this chapter is to describe and report on ways to develop globally competent teachers. The chapter also reports on the authors' empirical studies related to international perspectives on teacher preparation and the development of global competencies. The chapter concludes with empirical and practitioner-oriented recommendations for preparing high quality teachers to also be global competent.

scholarly journals Posthumanism in Archaeology: An Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Manuel Fernández-Götz ◽  
Andrew Gardner ◽  
Guillermo Díaz de Liaño ◽  
Oliver J.T. Harris
Keyword(s):  
Animal Studies ◽  
Quantum Physics ◽  
Cutting Edge ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Material World ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
The World ◽  
Mind And Body ◽  
Material Things ◽  
Interdisciplinary Study

Posthumanism is a growing field of interdisciplinary study that has emerged, principally in the last 20 years, as a broad church which seeks to reconceptualize human beings’ relationships with the world. At its heart, Posthumanism seeks to destabilize and question the category of ‘human’, which it sees as having previously been treated as transcendent and ahistorical. In its place, the figure of the posthuman aims to capture the complex and situated nature of our species’ existence, outside traditional dichotomies like culture and nature, mind and body, person and environment, and so on. From animal studies (e.g. Despret 2016; Wolfe 2009), via a rekindled attention to the material world (Coole & Frost 2010) to the cutting edge of quantum physics (Barad 2007), Posthumanism draws on a diverse range of inspiration (Ferrando 2019). This diversity also covers a significant internal dissonance and difference, with some posthumanists taking relational approaches, others arguing for the essential qualities of things, some focusing primarily on material things without humans and others calling for explicitly feminist investigations.

From Brotherly Handshake to Militant Clenched Fist: On Political Metaphors for the Worker's Hand

1992 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 70-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gottfried Korff
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Manual Dexterity ◽  
Manual Labor ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Renaissance Art ◽  
Material World ◽  
Labor Power ◽  
The World ◽  
Sistine Chapel ◽  
The Creation

The hand has long been a symbol of what makes human beings human. It is still used to convey this meaning, despite the decline of manual labor and the replacement of manual dexterity by machines, robots, and computers. A number of twentieth-century images remind us of the hand's labor power: for example, Fernand Leger's 1951 homage to Vladimir Mayakowsky, his earlier 1918 painting, “The Mechanic,” which is a veritable icon of the worker whose hand forms the dynamic compositional element (Fig. 1), and Diego Rivera's “Detroit Industry Frescoes,” where gigantic hands symbolize humanity's struggle with the material world. In European visual traditions, the iconography of the hand as labor power is imprinted by three types of images: Renaissance imagery, industrial allegory, and artisan and worker iconography. In Renaissance art, Michelangelo, in “The Creation” in the Sistine Chapel, reinterpreted the Biblical reference to God's breathing life into the world by adding the barely touching hands of God and Adam, thereby suggesting the virtue of active work. Industrial allegory, developed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, emphasized the “bourgeois” view of work as a sign of goaloriented, planned achievement and success in the world, with the hand depicted as a tool that creates new tools and hence the organ that makes humanity the crowning work of creation.

Lucretius: De Rerum Natura

2008 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Intelligent Design ◽  
Technological Progress ◽  
World View ◽  
First Century ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
De Rerum Natura ◽  
The World ◽  
Original Audience ◽  
Scientific Argument

For a work written more than two thousand years ago, in a society in many ways quite alien to our own, Lucretius' De Rerum Natura contains much of striking, even startling, contemporary relevance. This is true, above all, of the fifth book, which begins by putting a strong case against what it has recently become fashionable to call 'intelligent design', and ends with an account of human evolution and the development of society in which the limitations of technological progress form a strong and occasionally explicit subtext. Along the way, the poet touches on many themes which may strike a chord with the twenty-first century reader: the fragility of our ecosystem, the corruption of political life, the futility of consumerism and the desirability of limiting our acquisitive instincts are all highly topical issues for us, as for the poem's original audience. Book V also offers a fascinating introduction to the world-view of the upper-class Roman of the first century BC. This edition (which complements existing Aris and Phillips commentaries on books 3, 4 and 6) will help to make Lucretius' urgent and impassioned argument, and something of his remarkable poetic style, accessible to a wider audience, including those with little or no knowledge of Latin. Both the translation and commentary aim to explain the scientific argument of the book as clearly as possible; and to convey at least some impression of the poetic texture of Lucretius' Latin.

scholarly journals Człowiek i przyroda w nauce chrześcijańskiego Wschodu

2004 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 327-348
Author(s):  
Janusz Aptacy
Keyword(s):  
Human Beings ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Material World ◽  
Know How ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Ex Nihilo ◽  
Life On Earth ◽  
The Universe ◽  
The Church

This article speaks of the relation between man and the rest of the created world. This is a subject that is being taken up more and more frequently by ecologists, by philosophers and theologians. Man is in relation to the universe above all because of their common beginning. For everything, human beings included came into being "from nothing" (ex nihilo). Secondly: all of creation, even if to a different degree, is subject to the laws of limitations. Thirdly: all of the universe, which means also a man living in it, is called development and liberation from the burdening of evil, in order to participate in the freedom and glory of the children of God (cfr. R om 8:21). The subject of the relation of man with the rest of the created world was dear to the Fathers of the Church, especially in the East. The heritage of the Eastern Church Fathers has been taken up mainly by Orthodox theologians. But there are also Catholic theologians that take up the subject of the relation between man and the universe. Here one should name above all K. Rahner, H.U. von Balthasar and, among Polish theologians: W. Hryniewicz. Among the contemporary Orthodox theologians that speak of the relation between man and the universe, we find O. Clément. For him, relations with God the Creator and Savior are of importance. Upon these relations depend on other ones: with other people and with the universe. If one does not take this into consideration, one's knowledge of the man himself would be incomplete. Relations between man and the universe can be twofold: man can remain on the outside of the reality which shows itself to his eyes or he can be inserted into this reality, which he shall observe as an organic all-embracing unity. Visible nature, as O. Clément writes, is a book rich in content, which speaks of life on Earth and after death. It is only necessary to know how to make use of this book. Man created in the "image and likeness" of God is marked by divinity and participates in the divine intellect and, by means of his body, is in relation to the material world. He concentrates in himself what is spiritual and what is material. All of the created universe can participate in divine "energies" only through man, who is "priest and caretaker" of the universe. It is the duty of man to read the first revelation (that is the world) and to "realize the ontological glorification of all things". But man, because of original sin, has led to a true cosmic catastrophe, to a darkening of the modality of paradise and to the appearance of a new way of universal existence, marked by sin. The man also ceased to understand the true world, the way God created it and sustains it in His glory. Creation,  just as Rs Creator, does not thrust itself upon man, who sees the universe through the prism of his fall which in such a manner obscures and covers it, that he becomes more and more obdurate to the action of God.

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