Naturalism and the Human Spirit

Naturalism and the Human Spirit PDF Author: Yervant Hovhannes Krikorian
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Naturalism
Languages : en
Pages : 416

Book Description


Writing Wild

Writing Wild PDF Author: Tina Welling
Publisher: New World Library
ISBN: 1608682870
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 250

Book Description
Align Your Creative Energy with Nature’s “Everything we know about creating,” writes Tina Welling, “we know intuitively from the natural world.” In Writing Wild, Welling details a three-step “Spirit Walk” process for inviting nature to enliven and inspire our creativity.

Narrative Naturalism

Narrative Naturalism PDF Author: Jessica Wahman
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0739187988
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 209

Book Description
Narrative Naturalism: An Alternative Framework for Philosophy of Mind provides an original framework for a non-reductive approach to mind and philosophical psychology. Jessica Wahman challenges the reductive (i.e., mechanistic and physicalist) assumptions that render the mind-body problem intractable, and claims that George Santayana’s naturalism provides a more beneficial epistemological method and ontological framework for thinking about the place of consciousness in the natural world. She uses Santayana’s thought as the primary inspiration for her own specific viewpoint, one that draws on a variety of sources, from analytic philosophy of mind to existentialism and psychoanalysis. This outlook, narrative naturalism, depicts sense-making as a kind of storytelling where different narratives serve different purposes, and Wahman offer a unique worldview to accommodate a variety of true expressions about the world, including truths about subjective existence. Motivated by a desire to challenge the reductionist approaches that explain human motivation and experience in terms of neuroscience and by the increasingly pharmacological interpretations of and solutions to psychological problems, Wahman’s overarching purpose is to reconstruct the issue so that neuroscience can be embraced as an indispensable story among others in our understanding of the human condition. When placed in this context, neurobiological discoveries better serve the values and practices associated with human self-knowledge and well-being. Narrative Naturalism will appeal to those interested in American philosophy, Santayana scholarship, pragmatist epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophical psychology, and metaphysics.

Hegel's Naturalism

Hegel's Naturalism PDF Author: Terry Pinkard
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199330077
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 226

Book Description
Terry Pinkard draws on Hegel's central works as well as his lectures on aesthetics, the history of philosophy, and the philosophy of history in this deeply informed and original exploration of Hegel's naturalism. As Pinkard explains, Hegel's version of naturalism was in fact drawn from Aristotelian naturalism: Hegel fused Aristotle's conception of nature with his insistence that the origin and development of philosophy has empirical physics as its presupposition. As a result, Hegel found that, although modern nature must be understood as a whole to be non-purposive, there is nonetheless a place for Aristotelian purposiveness within such nature. Such a naturalism provides the framework for explaining how we are both natural organisms and also practically minded (self-determining, rationally responsive, reason-giving) beings. In arguing for this point, Hegel shows that the kind of self-division which is characteristic of human agency also provides human agents with an updated version of an Aristotelian final end of life. Pinkard treats this conception of the final end of "being at one with oneself" in two parts. The first part focuses on Hegel's account of agency in naturalist terms and how it is that agency requires such a self-division, while the second part explores how Hegel thinks a historical narration is essential for understanding what this kind of self-division has come to require of itself. In making his case, Hegel argues that both the antinomies of philosophical thought and the essential fragmentation of modern life are all not to be understood as overcome in a higher order unity in the "State." On the contrary, Hegel demonstrates that modern institutions do not resolve such tensions any more than a comprehensive philosophical account can resolve them theoretically. The job of modern practices and institutions (and at a reflective level the task of modern philosophy) is to help us understand and live with precisely the unresolvability of these oppositions. Therefore, Pinkard explains, Hegel is not the totality theorist he has been taken to be, nor is he an "identity thinker," à la Adorno. He is an anti-totality thinker.

Nature and Spirit

Nature and Spirit PDF Author: Robert S. Corrington
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Book Description
"Phenomenological descriptions are made of the human process and its struggles between its finite and transcendent dimensions. The self is located within both natural and interpretive (i.e., hermeneutic) communities, and the semiotic implications of both types of community are detailed. The phenomenon of worldhood, i.e., that which is not a world or within the world but which locates and encompasses all worlds, is examined from the standpoint of a transformation of Heidegger's formulations. The pragmatic and semiotic dimensions of worldhood are defined in the context of an enlarged conception of nature. Finally, God's several dimensions are explored as they relate to each other and to the world within which they are often embedded. Process theology is challenged for its failure to explore what the author considers to be the fragmented yet self-transfiguring quality of the divine life."--BOOK JACKET.

Nature and the Human Soul

Nature and the Human Soul PDF Author: Bill Plotkin
Publisher: New World Library
ISBN: 1577313542
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 530

Book Description
Addressing the pervasive longing for meaning and fulfillment in this time of crisis, Nature and the Human Soul introduces a visionary ecopsychology of human development that reveals how fully and creatively we can mature when soul and wild nature guide us. Depth psychologist and wilderness guide Bill Plotkin presents a model for a human life span rooted in the cycles and qualities of the natural world, a blueprint for individual development that ultimately yields a strategy for cultural transformation. If it is true, as Plotkin and others observe, that we live in a culture dominated by adolescent habits and desires, then the enduring societal changes we so desperately need won’t happen until we individually and collectively evolve into an engaged, authentic adulthood. With evocative language and personal stories, including those of elders Thomas Berry and Joanna Macy, this book defines eight stages of human life — Innocent, Explorer, Thespian, Wanderer, Soul Apprentice, Artisan, Master, and Sage — and describes the challenges and benefits of each. Plotkin offers a way of progressing from our current egocentric, aggressively competitive, consumer society to an ecocentric, soul-based one that is sustainable, cooperative, and compassionate. At once a primer on human development and a manifesto for change, Nature and the Human Soul fashions a template for a more mature, fulfilling, and purposeful life — and a better world.

Philosophical Essays

Philosophical Essays PDF Author: O. K. Bouwsma
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803262256
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 228

Book Description
The essays in this collection are not confined to any one period or any one subject. Nearly every one, in the author's words, is "an attempt to understand some short passage from the work of some philosopher, teasing the passage with analogies of sense. If one were to describe the method, as Descartes described his method, the method of doubt, perhaps it might best be described as the method of failure."

Body & Soul

Body & Soul PDF Author: J. P. Moreland
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830874593
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 385

Book Description
While most people throughout history have believed that we are both physical and spiritual beings, the rise of science has called into question the existence of the soul. Many now argue that neurophysiology demonstrates the radical dependence, indeed, identity, between mind and brain. Advances in genetics and in mapping human DNA, some say, show there is no need for the hypothesis of body-soul dualism. Even many Christian intellectuals have come to view the soul as a false Greek concept that is outdated and unbiblical. Concurrent with the demise of dualism has been the rise of advanced medical technologies that have brought to the fore difficult issues at both edges of life. Central to questions about abortion, fetal research, reproductive techologies, cloning and euthanasia is our understanding of the nature of human personhood, the reality of life after death and the value of ethical or religious knowledge as compared to scientific knowledge. In this careful treatment, J. P. Moreland and Scott B. Rae argue that the rise of these problems alongside the demise of Christian dualism is no coincidence. They therefore employ a theological realism to meet these pressing issues, and to present a reasonable and biblical depiction of human nature as it impinges upon critical ethical concerns. This vigorous philosophical and ethical defense of human nature as body and soul, regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees, will be for all a touchstone for debate and discussion for years to come.

Naturalism and the Human Condition

Naturalism and the Human Condition PDF Author: Frederick A. Olafson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134527489
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 129

Book Description
Naturalism and the Human Condition is a compelling account of why naturalism, or the 'scientific world-view' cannot provide a full account of who and what we are as human beings. Drawing on sources including Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Husserl and Sartre, Olafson exposes the limits of naturalism and stresses the importance of serious philosophical investigation of human nature.

Naturalism

Naturalism PDF Author: Stewart Goetz
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 0802807682
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 141

Book Description
This inaugural Interventions volume introduces readers to the dominant scientifically oriented worldview called naturalism. Stewart Goetz and Charles Taliaferro examine naturalism philosophically, evaluating its strengths and weaknesses. Whereas most other books on naturalism are written for professional philosophers alone, this one is aimed primarily at a college-educated audience interested in learning about this pervasive worldview. Read a related blog post by the authors on EerdWord.