scholarly journals The Human Vocation and the Question of the Earth: Karoline von Günderrode’s Philosophy of Nature

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dalia Nassar
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Natural World ◽  
The Self ◽  
Human Relation ◽  
Philosophy Of Nature ◽  
Critical Response ◽  
The Earth

Abstract Contra widespread readings of Karoline von Günderrode’s 1805 “Idea of the Earth (Idee der Erde)” as a creative adaptation of Schelling’s philosophy of nature, this article proposes that “Idea of the Earth” furnishes a moral account of the human relation to the natural world, one which does not map onto any of the more well-known romantic or idealist accounts of the human-nature relation. Specifically, I argue that “Idea of the Earth” responds to the great Enlightenment question concerning the human vocation, but from a distinctive romantic-idealist angle. I begin by demonstrating the influence of Fichte’s 1800 Vocation of Humanity on Günderrode’s thinking, which involves an investigation of both Fichte’s text and Günderrode’s critical response to it. I then turn to “Idea of the Earth” where I analyse Günderrode’s understanding of nature and the self in light of her critique of Fichte, and thereby distinguish her position from Fichte’s and from the position espoused by her fellow romantics and idealists. By reading “Idea of the Earth” alongside Fichte’s text and Günderrode’s remarks on it, this article sheds new light on both Günderrode’s understanding and defence of Naturphilosophie – against Fichte’s critique of it – and her distinctive contribution to romantic philosophies of nature.

Relationality in the Thought of Mary Midgley

2020 ◽  
Vol 87 ◽  
pp. 235-248
Author(s):  
Gregory S. McElwain
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
The Self ◽  
Mary Midgley ◽  
Over 40 Years

AbstractFor over 40 years, Mary Midgley has been celebrated for the sensibility with which she approached some of the most challenging and pressing issues in philosophy. Her expansive corpus addresses such diverse topics as human nature, morality, animals and the environment, gender, science, and religion. While there are many threads that tie together this impressive plurality of topics, the thread of relationality unites much of Midgley's thought on human nature and morality. This paper explores Midgley's pursuit of a relational notion of the self and our connections to others, including animals and the natural world.

Separation and Unity: Zen Koan in Environmental Theory and Education

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
David Chang
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Education ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Western Culture ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Sensory Experience ◽  
Ecological Crisis ◽  
Ecological Ethics ◽  
Pedagogical Innovation ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Environmental Educators

Abstract The ecological crisis has been traced to a rupture in the human-nature relationship, which sees the natural world as inert materials that serve human utility. This prevailing sense of separation is thoroughly embedded in Western culture through engrained metaphors that reinforce a view of the Earth as a subject of human mastery. To counter the disjuncture between humans and nature, some theorists have suggested a unitive view of nature, while others have argued for more expansive forms of identification that engender a more responsive ecological ethics. Despite these efforts, the human-nature dichotomy remains a perennial issue of debate, especially for environmental educators who strive to cultivate a more harmonious relationship with the earth. This article examines the Zen Koan (case or example) as a pedagogical innovation that hones the learner’s ability to entertain opposing propositions. Humans are both united with and separate from nature at the same time. The Koan encourages an epistemological fluidity and openness to ambiguity that can enrich and deepen inquiry. In the context of environmental education, this contemplative approach to investigation can complement immersive pedagogies that enjoin somatic and sensory experience in explorations of the natural world.

‘Because I’m a wild animal’: Nature Versus Nurture in Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox

2019 ◽  
pp. 121-143
Author(s):  
Michelle Devereaux
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Henry David Thoreau ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Wild Animal ◽  
The Self ◽  
Creative Genius ◽  
Children's Book ◽  
Nature Versus Nurture ◽  
The Aesthetic

This chapter analyses the ideological framework of Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s beloved children’s book. This film addresses various Romantic conceptions of childhood, personal and cultural history, and the natural world in relation to the self and subjectivity. In his reimagining of Dahl’s story, Anderson exhibits a disdain for the mechanization of the societal landscape and the beings inhabiting it, similar to a course charted by Henry David Thoreau in Walden, while also optimistically suggesting that animal/human ‘nature’ can still survive through aesthetic and ideological compromise and creative genius. Anderson creates a brand of ideological pastoralism to match the aesthetic pastoralism/picturesque of many of his film worlds. While the anxiety portrayed in his earlier films remains, it is somewhat defused by an anarchic yet collaborative spirit.

Karoline von Günderrode (1780–1806)

2021 ◽  
pp. 62-84
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Human Relation ◽  
Philosophy Of Nature ◽  
Johann Gottlieb Fichte ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Environmental Thought ◽  
Unpublished Works

This chapter presents three unpublished works by Karoline von Günderrode. In them, Günderrode discusses and assesses the moral philosophy of Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Schelling’s philosophy of nature, while also developing her own ethical account of the human relation to the earth in the essay “Idea of the Earth.” Widely regarded as her most important and radical contribution, “Idea of the Earth” distinguishes Günderrode among her contemporaries and places her in proximity to current environmental thought.

Hume and The Self: A Critical Response

2007 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-30
Author(s):  
Alan Schwerin
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Personal Identity ◽  
David Hume ◽  
The Self ◽  
Critical Response ◽  
Treatise Of Human Nature ◽  
Conceptual Apparatus ◽  
Fallacy Of Equivocation ◽  
Rival View ◽  
The Way

In the discussion of personal identity, from his Treatise of Human Nature, David Hume reaches a famous, if notorious conclusion: there is no self. We are “nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions” (T 252). My argument is that Hume's thesis on the self rests on a questionable rejection of a rival view that appears to commit the fallacy of equivocation. Along the way I identify a few possible problems with Hume's overall analysis of the self. My argument is that these diffi culties center around the conceptual apparatus Hume relies on to explain and analyze consciousness.

‘A pinch of unseen, unguarded dust’: The World and Self in Thomas Hardy's Poems

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-66
Author(s):  
Monika Szuba
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Phenomenological Philosophy ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Recurrent Theme ◽  
Body Subject

The essay discusses selected poems from Thomas Hardy's vast body of poetry, focusing on representations of the self and the world. Employing Maurice Merleau-Ponty's concepts such as the body-subject, wild being, flesh, and reversibility, the essay offers an analysis of Hardy's poems in the light of phenomenological philosophy. It argues that far from demonstrating ‘cosmic indifference’, Hardy's poetry offers a sympathetic vision of interrelations governing the universe. The attunement with voices of the Earth foregrounded in the poems enables the self's entanglement in the flesh of the world, a chiasmatic intertwining of beings inserted between the leaves of the world. The relation of the self with the world is established through the act of perception, mainly visual and aural, when the body becomes intertwined with the world, thus resulting in a powerful welding. Such moments of vision are brief and elusive, which enhances a sense of transitoriness, and, yet, they are also timeless as the self becomes immersed in the experience. As time is a recurrent theme in Hardy's poetry, this essay discusses it in the context of dwelling, the provisionality of which is demonstrated in the prevalent sense of temporality, marked by seasons and birdsong, which underline the rhythms of the world.

Wer täuscht wen?

2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-100
Author(s):  
Daniel Strassberg
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
The Self ◽  
Narrative Approach ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Narrative Context ◽  
Everyday Knowledge

The insight that human beings are prone to deceive themselves is part of our everyday knowledge of human nature. Even so, if deceiving someone means to deliberately misrepresent something to him, it is difficult to understand how it is possible to deceive yourself. This paper tries to address this difficulty by means of a narrative approach. Self-deception is conceived as a change of the narrative context by means of which the same fact appears in a different light. On these grounds, depending on whether the self-deceiver adopts an ironic attitude to his self-deception or not, it is also possible to distinguish between a morally inexcusable self-deception and a morally indifferent one.

Pèlerinages barrésiens

2013 ◽  
pp. 116-123
Author(s):  
Claire Bompaire-Evesque
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
The Self ◽  
Joan Of Arc ◽  
The Third ◽  
National Importance ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Third Stage ◽  
The Dead

This article is a inquiry about how Barrès (1862-1923) handles the religious rite of pilgrimage. Barrès stages in his writings three successive forms of pilgrimage, revealing what is sacred to him at different times. The pilgrimage to a museum or to the birthplace of an artist is typical for the egotism and the humanism of the young Barrès, expressed in the Cult of the Self (1888-1891). After his conversion to nationalism, Barrès tries to unite the sons of France and to instill in them a solemn reverence for “the earth and the dead” ; for that purpose he encourages in French Amities (1903) pilgrimages to historical places of national importance (battlefields; birthplace of Joan of Arc), building what Nora later called the Realms of Memory. The third stage of Barrès’ intellectual evolution is exemplified by The Sacred Hill (1913). In this book the writer celebrates the places where “the Spirit blows”, and proves open to a large scale of spiritual forces, reaching back to paganism and forward to integrative syncretism, which aims at unifying “the entire realm of the sacred”.

Virtues, Inclinations, and Oneness

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip J. Ivanhoe
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
The Self ◽  
Virtuous Action

This chapter develops various implications of the oneness hypothesis when applied to theories of virtue, drawing on several claims that are closely related to the hypothesis. Many of the views introduced and defended are inspired by neo-Confucianism and so the chapter offers an example of constructive philosophy bridging cultures and traditions. It focuses on Foot’s theory, which holds that virtues correct excesses or deficiencies in human nature. The alternative maintains that vices often arise not from an excess or deficiency in motivation but from a mistaken conception of self, one that sees oneself as somehow more important than others. The chapter goes on to argue that such a view helps address the “self-centeredness objection” to virtue ethics and that the effortlessness, joy, and wholeheartedness that characterizes fully virtuous action are best conceived as a kind of spontaneity that affords a special feeling of happiness dubbed “metaphysical comfort.”

scholarly journals Rule-governed Practices in the Natural World

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 161-181
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Huemer
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Social Dimension ◽  
Rule Following ◽  
Contemporary Debate ◽  
Person Plural ◽  
The Social ◽  
First Person Plural ◽  
Community Rule

AbstractI address the question of whether naturalism can provide adequate means for the scientific study of rules and rule-following behavior. As the term “naturalism” is used in many different ways in the contemporary debate, I will first spell out which version of naturalism I am targeting. Then I will recall a classical argument against naturalism in a version presented by Husserl. In the main part of the paper, I will sketch a conception of rule-following behavior that is influenced by Sellars and Haugeland. I will argue that rule-following is an essential part of human nature and insist in the social dimension of rules. Moreover, I will focus on the often overlooked fact that genuine rule-following behavior requires resilience and presupposes an inclination to calibrate one’s own behavior to that of the other members of the community. Rule-following, I will argue, is possible only for social creatures who follow shared rules, which in turn presupposes a shared (first-person plural) perspective. This implies, however, that our scientific understanding of human nature has to remain incomplete as long as it does not take this perspective, which prima facie seems alien to it, into account.

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