Nature as Reason

Nature as Reason

Author: Jean Porter

Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 440

ISBN-13: 9780802849069

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This noteworthy book develops a new theory of the natural law that takes its orientation from the account of the natural law developed by Thomas Aquinas, as interpreted and supplemented in the context of scholastic theology in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Though this history might seem irrelevant to twenty-first-century life, Jean Porter shows that the scholastic approach to the natural law still has much to contribute to the contemporary discussion of Christian ethics. Aquinas and his interlocutors provide a way of thinking about the natural law that is distinctively theological while at the same time remaining open to other intellectual perspectives, including those of science. In the course of her work, Porter examines the scholastics' assumptions and beliefs about nature, Aquinas's account of happiness, and the overarching claim that reason can generate moral norms. Ultimately, Porter argues that a Thomistic theory of the natural law is well suited to provide a starting point for developing a more nuanced account of the relationship between specific beliefs and practices. While Aquinas's approach to the natural law may not provide a system of ethical norms that is both universally compelling and detailed enough to be practical, it does offer something that is arguably more valuable -- namely, a way of reflecting theologically on the phenomenon of human morality.


Book Synopsis Nature as Reason by : Jean Porter

Download or read book Nature as Reason written by Jean Porter and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2005 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This noteworthy book develops a new theory of the natural law that takes its orientation from the account of the natural law developed by Thomas Aquinas, as interpreted and supplemented in the context of scholastic theology in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Though this history might seem irrelevant to twenty-first-century life, Jean Porter shows that the scholastic approach to the natural law still has much to contribute to the contemporary discussion of Christian ethics. Aquinas and his interlocutors provide a way of thinking about the natural law that is distinctively theological while at the same time remaining open to other intellectual perspectives, including those of science. In the course of her work, Porter examines the scholastics' assumptions and beliefs about nature, Aquinas's account of happiness, and the overarching claim that reason can generate moral norms. Ultimately, Porter argues that a Thomistic theory of the natural law is well suited to provide a starting point for developing a more nuanced account of the relationship between specific beliefs and practices. While Aquinas's approach to the natural law may not provide a system of ethical norms that is both universally compelling and detailed enough to be practical, it does offer something that is arguably more valuable -- namely, a way of reflecting theologically on the phenomenon of human morality.

Reason in Nature

Reason in Nature

Author: Matthew Boyle

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2022-12-06

Total Pages: 393

ISBN-13: 0674241045

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Against the dominant view of reductive naturalism, John McDowell argues that human life should be seen as transformed by reason so that human minds, while not supernatural, are sui generis. This collection assembles eleven critical essays that highlight the enduring significance and wide ramifications of McDowell’s unorthodox position.


Book Synopsis Reason in Nature by : Matthew Boyle

Download or read book Reason in Nature written by Matthew Boyle and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2022-12-06 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Against the dominant view of reductive naturalism, John McDowell argues that human life should be seen as transformed by reason so that human minds, while not supernatural, are sui generis. This collection assembles eleven critical essays that highlight the enduring significance and wide ramifications of McDowell’s unorthodox position.

The Nature of Nature

The Nature of Nature

Author: Enric Sala

Publisher: Disney Electronic Content

Published: 2020-08-25

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 1426221029

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In this inspiring manifesto, an internationally renowned ecologist makes a clear case for why protecting nature is our best health insurance, and why it makes economic sense.


Book Synopsis The Nature of Nature by : Enric Sala

Download or read book The Nature of Nature written by Enric Sala and published by Disney Electronic Content. This book was released on 2020-08-25 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this inspiring manifesto, an internationally renowned ecologist makes a clear case for why protecting nature is our best health insurance, and why it makes economic sense.

Against Nature

Against Nature

Author: Lorraine Daston

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2019-05-28

Total Pages: 88

ISBN-13: 0262353814

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A pithy work of philosophical anthropology that explores why humans find moral orders in natural orders. Why have human beings, in many different cultures and epochs, looked to nature as a source of norms for human behavior? From ancient India and ancient Greece, medieval France and Enlightenment America, up to the latest controversies over gay marriage and cloning, natural orders have been enlisted to illustrate and buttress moral orders. Revolutionaries and reactionaries alike have appealed to nature to shore up their causes. No amount of philosophical argument or political critique deters the persistent and pervasive temptation to conflate the “is” of natural orders with the “ought” of moral orders. In this short, pithy work of philosophical anthropology, Lorraine Daston asks why we continually seek moral orders in natural orders, despite so much good counsel to the contrary. She outlines three specific forms of natural order in the Western philosophical tradition—specific natures, local natures, and universal natural laws—and describes how each of these three natural orders has been used to define and oppose a distinctive form of the unnatural. She argues that each of these forms of the unnatural triggers equally distinctive emotions: horror, terror, and wonder. Daston proposes that human reason practiced in human bodies should command the attention of philosophers, who have traditionally yearned for a transcendent reason, valid for all species, all epochs, even all planets.


Book Synopsis Against Nature by : Lorraine Daston

Download or read book Against Nature written by Lorraine Daston and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2019-05-28 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A pithy work of philosophical anthropology that explores why humans find moral orders in natural orders. Why have human beings, in many different cultures and epochs, looked to nature as a source of norms for human behavior? From ancient India and ancient Greece, medieval France and Enlightenment America, up to the latest controversies over gay marriage and cloning, natural orders have been enlisted to illustrate and buttress moral orders. Revolutionaries and reactionaries alike have appealed to nature to shore up their causes. No amount of philosophical argument or political critique deters the persistent and pervasive temptation to conflate the “is” of natural orders with the “ought” of moral orders. In this short, pithy work of philosophical anthropology, Lorraine Daston asks why we continually seek moral orders in natural orders, despite so much good counsel to the contrary. She outlines three specific forms of natural order in the Western philosophical tradition—specific natures, local natures, and universal natural laws—and describes how each of these three natural orders has been used to define and oppose a distinctive form of the unnatural. She argues that each of these forms of the unnatural triggers equally distinctive emotions: horror, terror, and wonder. Daston proposes that human reason practiced in human bodies should command the attention of philosophers, who have traditionally yearned for a transcendent reason, valid for all species, all epochs, even all planets.

Environmental Philosophy

Environmental Philosophy

Author: Christopher Belshaw

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-12-18

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 1317490045

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This introduction to the philosophy of the environment examines current debates on how we should think about the natural world and our place within it. The subject is examined from a determinedly analytic philosophical perspective, focusing on questions of value, but taking in attendant issues in epistemology and metaphysics as well. The book begins by considering the nature, extent and origin of the environmental problems with which we need to be concerned. Chapters go on to consider familiar strategies for dealing with environmental problems, and then consider what sort of things are of direct moral concern, examining in turn at animals, non-sentient life-forms, natural but non-living things and deep ecology. The final part of the book investigates notions of value, natural beauty and the place of human beings in the scheme of things.


Book Synopsis Environmental Philosophy by : Christopher Belshaw

Download or read book Environmental Philosophy written by Christopher Belshaw and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-12-18 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This introduction to the philosophy of the environment examines current debates on how we should think about the natural world and our place within it. The subject is examined from a determinedly analytic philosophical perspective, focusing on questions of value, but taking in attendant issues in epistemology and metaphysics as well. The book begins by considering the nature, extent and origin of the environmental problems with which we need to be concerned. Chapters go on to consider familiar strategies for dealing with environmental problems, and then consider what sort of things are of direct moral concern, examining in turn at animals, non-sentient life-forms, natural but non-living things and deep ecology. The final part of the book investigates notions of value, natural beauty and the place of human beings in the scheme of things.

Natural

Natural

Author: Alan Levinovitz

Publisher: Beacon Press

Published: 2020-04-07

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 080701088X

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Illuminates the far-reaching harms of believing that natural means “good,” from misinformation about health choices to justifications for sexism, racism, and flawed economic policies. People love what’s natural: it’s the best way to eat, the best way to parent, even the best way to act—naturally, just as nature intended. Appeals to the wisdom of nature are among the most powerful arguments in the history of human thought. Yet Nature (with a capital N) and natural goodness are not objective or scientific. In this groundbreaking book, scholar of religion Alan Levinovitz demonstrates that these beliefs are actually religious and highlights the many dangers of substituting simple myths for complicated realities. It may not seem like a problem when it comes to paying a premium for organic food. But what about condemnations of “unnatural” sexual activity? The guilt that attends not having a “natural” birth? Economic deregulation justified by the inherent goodness of “natural” markets? In Natural, readers embark on an epic journey, from Peruvian rainforests to the backcountry in Yellowstone Park, from a “natural” bodybuilding competition to a “natural” cancer-curing clinic. The result is an essential new perspective that shatters faith in Nature’s goodness and points to a better alternative. We can love nature without worshipping it, and we can work toward a better world with humility and dialogue rather than taboos and zealotry.


Book Synopsis Natural by : Alan Levinovitz

Download or read book Natural written by Alan Levinovitz and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Illuminates the far-reaching harms of believing that natural means “good,” from misinformation about health choices to justifications for sexism, racism, and flawed economic policies. People love what’s natural: it’s the best way to eat, the best way to parent, even the best way to act—naturally, just as nature intended. Appeals to the wisdom of nature are among the most powerful arguments in the history of human thought. Yet Nature (with a capital N) and natural goodness are not objective or scientific. In this groundbreaking book, scholar of religion Alan Levinovitz demonstrates that these beliefs are actually religious and highlights the many dangers of substituting simple myths for complicated realities. It may not seem like a problem when it comes to paying a premium for organic food. But what about condemnations of “unnatural” sexual activity? The guilt that attends not having a “natural” birth? Economic deregulation justified by the inherent goodness of “natural” markets? In Natural, readers embark on an epic journey, from Peruvian rainforests to the backcountry in Yellowstone Park, from a “natural” bodybuilding competition to a “natural” cancer-curing clinic. The result is an essential new perspective that shatters faith in Nature’s goodness and points to a better alternative. We can love nature without worshipping it, and we can work toward a better world with humility and dialogue rather than taboos and zealotry.

Reason and Nature

Reason and Nature

Author: Morris R. Cohen

Publisher:

Published: 1985-01-01

Total Pages: 469

ISBN-13: 9780841419964

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Book Synopsis Reason and Nature by : Morris R. Cohen

Download or read book Reason and Nature written by Morris R. Cohen and published by . This book was released on 1985-01-01 with total page 469 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

On Human Nature

On Human Nature

Author: Roger Scruton

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2018-10-16

Total Pages: 159

ISBN-13: 0691183031

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A brief, radical defense of human uniqueness from acclaimed philosopher Roger Scruton In this short book, acclaimed writer and philosopher Roger Scruton presents an original and radical defense of human uniqueness. Confronting the views of evolutionary psychologists, utilitarian moralists, and philosophical materialists such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, Scruton argues that human beings cannot be understood simply as biological objects. We are not only human animals; we are also persons, in essential relation with other persons, and bound to them by obligations and rights. Scruton develops and defends his account of human nature by ranging widely across intellectual history, from Plato and Averroës to Darwin and Wittgenstein. The book begins with Kant’s suggestion that we are distinguished by our ability to say “I”—by our sense of ourselves as the centers of self-conscious reflection. This fact is manifested in our emotions, interests, and relations. It is the foundation of the moral sense, as well as of the aesthetic and religious conceptions through which we shape the human world and endow it with meaning. And it lies outside the scope of modern materialist philosophy, even though it is a natural and not a supernatural fact. Ultimately, Scruton offers a new way of understanding how self-consciousness affects the question of how we should live. The result is a rich view of human nature that challenges some of today’s most fashionable ideas about our species.


Book Synopsis On Human Nature by : Roger Scruton

Download or read book On Human Nature written by Roger Scruton and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-16 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A brief, radical defense of human uniqueness from acclaimed philosopher Roger Scruton In this short book, acclaimed writer and philosopher Roger Scruton presents an original and radical defense of human uniqueness. Confronting the views of evolutionary psychologists, utilitarian moralists, and philosophical materialists such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, Scruton argues that human beings cannot be understood simply as biological objects. We are not only human animals; we are also persons, in essential relation with other persons, and bound to them by obligations and rights. Scruton develops and defends his account of human nature by ranging widely across intellectual history, from Plato and Averroës to Darwin and Wittgenstein. The book begins with Kant’s suggestion that we are distinguished by our ability to say “I”—by our sense of ourselves as the centers of self-conscious reflection. This fact is manifested in our emotions, interests, and relations. It is the foundation of the moral sense, as well as of the aesthetic and religious conceptions through which we shape the human world and endow it with meaning. And it lies outside the scope of modern materialist philosophy, even though it is a natural and not a supernatural fact. Ultimately, Scruton offers a new way of understanding how self-consciousness affects the question of how we should live. The result is a rich view of human nature that challenges some of today’s most fashionable ideas about our species.

The Better Angels of Our Nature

The Better Angels of Our Nature

Author: Steven Pinker

Publisher: Penguin Books

Published: 2012-09-25

Total Pages: 834

ISBN-13: 0143122010

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Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think this is the most violent age ever seen. Yet as bestselling author Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true.


Book Synopsis The Better Angels of Our Nature by : Steven Pinker

Download or read book The Better Angels of Our Nature written by Steven Pinker and published by Penguin Books. This book was released on 2012-09-25 with total page 834 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think this is the most violent age ever seen. Yet as bestselling author Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true.

Mind and Cosmos

Mind and Cosmos

Author: Thomas Nagel

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2012-11-22

Total Pages: 141

ISBN-13: 0199919755

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The modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain such central mind-related features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, and value. This failure to account for something so integral to nature as mind, argues philosopher Thomas Nagel, is a major problem, threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history, either. An adequate conception of nature would have to explain the appearance in the universe of materially irreducible conscious minds, as such. Nagel's skepticism is not based on religious belief or on a belief in any definite alternative. In Mind and Cosmos, he does suggest that if the materialist account is wrong, then principles of a different kind may also be at work in the history of nature, principles of the growth of order that are in their logical form teleological rather than mechanistic. In spite of the great achievements of the physical sciences, reductive materialism is a world view ripe for displacement. Nagel shows that to recognize its limits is the first step in looking for alternatives, or at least in being open to their possibility.


Book Synopsis Mind and Cosmos by : Thomas Nagel

Download or read book Mind and Cosmos written by Thomas Nagel and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-11-22 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain such central mind-related features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, and value. This failure to account for something so integral to nature as mind, argues philosopher Thomas Nagel, is a major problem, threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history, either. An adequate conception of nature would have to explain the appearance in the universe of materially irreducible conscious minds, as such. Nagel's skepticism is not based on religious belief or on a belief in any definite alternative. In Mind and Cosmos, he does suggest that if the materialist account is wrong, then principles of a different kind may also be at work in the history of nature, principles of the growth of order that are in their logical form teleological rather than mechanistic. In spite of the great achievements of the physical sciences, reductive materialism is a world view ripe for displacement. Nagel shows that to recognize its limits is the first step in looking for alternatives, or at least in being open to their possibility.