In the De mineralibus, Albert the Great clearly states that minerals do not possess life, since – following the Aristotelian path – life is always connected with the operations of the soul. Nevertheless, dealing with the virtues of stones, Albert speaks about a curious difference between “living” and “dead” stones: living stones are substances that possess virtues caused by their forms, while non-living stones are called stones only equivocally because their virtues have expired. Moreover, throughout his work, Albert often seeks (...) help from the biological world to explain the nature and the processes of mineral substances: the coming-into-being of stones and metals is often compared to the generation of plants and animals; places where minerals are formed act as the mother’s womb for the embryo; sulphur and quicksilver are said to be the father and the mother of all metals; etc. The tendency to biologise inorganic nature is a key strategy that Albert uses to explain the processes and functions of the mineral world. (shrink)

The distinction between organic and inorganic nature receives little attention in contemporary nature aesthetics. Traditionally, however, this distinction was considered to have important aesthetic ramifications. Nick Zangwill has recently suggested that aesthetic differences between organic and inorganic nature arise because natural functions are present only in organic nature (for example, in the parts of organisms). I argue for a different explanation: though inorganic nature too has natural functions, these are metaphysically distinct from (...) those characteristic of organic nature. I defend the claim that this difference in functions is aesthetically significant, and use it to justify a common intuition about the thesis of positive aesthetics for nature. (shrink)

I defend extreme formalism about inorganic nature against arguments put forward by Glenn Parsons. I begin by laying out the general issue over aesthetic formalism, and I describe the position of extreme formalism about inorganic nature. I then reconsider -Ronald Hepburn's beach/seabed example. Next I discuss the notions of function in play in our thinking about inorganic nature. And lastly I consider Parsons's flooding river example. I conclude that extreme formalism about inorganic (...) class='Hi'>nature is safe from Parsons's arguments. (shrink)

Extreme formalism is a radical and important position in the aesthetics of inorganic nature. Zangwill offers a new formulation of what formal aesthetic properties are, according to which a formal aesthetic property of a thing is an aesthetic property that is determined merely by its appearance properties. An appearance property of a thing is the way it seems if perceived under certain conditions. With the notion of formal aesthetic properties formulated as such, extreme formalism, the claim that all (...) aesthetic properties of inorganic things are formal, says that all aesthetic properties of inorganic things are determined merely by their appearance properties. Recently, Zangwill defends extreme formalism by deflecting the famous counter-example of the cumulonimbus cloud given by Budd, and argues for extreme formalism by arguing against the idea of the existence of non-formal beauty in inorganic nature. In this paper, we argue that both his defense and positive arguments are not successful. If our arguments are right, the burden of proof is still on Zangwill’s side. (shrink)

Abstract:This article discusses Hegel's claim that nature is the idea (Idee) having become external (äußerlich) to itself. Usually taken to signal a type of limitation in Hegel's philosophy, the author argues that recent interpretations of nature's externality are not entirely successfully because they reconstruct nature by either looking back to logic or forward to spirit. Instead, the article offers an interpretation that starts off from Hegel's argument that nature is "weak" (ohnmächtig) as it is not, nor (...) can become, thoroughly rational. It then traces the implications of this view in Hegel's inorganic philosophy of mechanics and physics. There, in a discussion that culminates with matter as fundamentally "brittle," a picture of externality emerges as the likelihood in nature of "deformed" or "damaged" determinations. What is ultimately unique about nature vis-à-vis logic is a setting in which partial rational determination makes sense at all. (shrink)

Aristotle’s Meteorology 4.12 is puzzling, in part because the chapter appears to extend teleological explanation to include certain inorganic materials without natural biological functions, such as metals and stone. This paper examines two attempts to explain why such materials can have functions, and shows that they are problematic. As an alternative, I argue that raw inorganic materials—as well as separated parts of organisms—can have extrinsic functions. Extrinsic functions can explain why natural inorganic materials can be sorted into (...) natural kinds, even if their functions are ultimately related to their uses in the productive arts. (shrink)

The concept of projection from one space to another, with a consequent loss of information, can be seen in the relationships of gene to protein and language description to real situation. Such a transformation can only be reversed if extra external information is re-supplied. The genetic algorithm embodying this idea is now used in applied mathematics for exploring a configuration space. Such a dialectic – transformation back and forth between two kinds of description – extends the traditional Hegelian concept used (...) by Engels and others of change as resulting from a resolution of the conflict of two opposing tendencies and provides for evolution of the joint system. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWhile Hegel’s concept of second nature has now received substantial attention from commentators, relatively little has been said about the place of this concept in the Phenomenology of Spirit. This neglect is understandable, since Hegel does not explicitly use the phrase ‘second nature’ in this text. Nonetheless, several closely related phrases reveal the centrality of this concept to the Phenomenology’s structure. In this paper, I develop new interpretations of the figures ‘natural consciousness’, ‘natural notion’, and ‘inorganic (...) class='Hi'>nature’, in order to elucidate the distinctive concept of second nature at work in the Phenomenology. I will argue that this concept of second nature supplements the ‘official’ version, developed in the Encyclopedia, with an ‘unofficial’ version that prefigures its use in critical theory. At the same time, this reconstruction will allow us to see how the Phenomenology essentially documents spirit’s acquisition of a ‘second nature’. (shrink)

This book develops an original interpretation of the relationship between F.W.J. Schelling and G.W.F. Hegel. It argues that the difference between these philosophers must be understood in light of their shared commitment to the philosophy of nature and the idea that spirit, or humanity, emerges from the natural world. The author makes a case for the contemporary relevance of German idealist philosophy of nature by walking the reader through its major themes, motivations, and arguments. Along the way, Schelling (...) and Hegel are shown to develop key insights about the structure of reality and the dependence of living things and human beings upon inorganic natural processes. In elucidating the details of Schelling's and Hegel's respective philosophies of nature, the book challenges some of our most basic assumptions about the scope of philosophical inquiry and the relationship between matter, life, and human existence. Schelling, Hegel, and the Philosophy of Nature will appeal to scholars and advanced students working on German idealism, as well as those interested in contemporary philosophies of nature and the topic of emergence. (shrink)

The paper is aimed at rationalizing relationships between the structure of inorganic compounds in condensed phases and their melting and boiling points. It is documented that the main factor governing both points is their molecular or polymeric nature. In case of polymeric ionic compounds, the higher actual charge bearing by the ions involved, the higher their melting/boiling points. In case of covalent polymers, the value of both points increases with polymer dimensionality and with the number and energy of (...) the respective covalent bonds. In case of molecular compounds, both points depend on the weight and shape of molecules, the presence of hydrogen bonds, and electric quadrupole moment. (shrink)

Attempts to find an authentically ecological outlook in Marx’s philosophy of nature are ultimately unsuccessful. Although Marx does at times point the way toward a truly ecological dialectic, he does not himself follow that way. Instead, he proposes a problematic of technological liberation and mastery of nature that preserves many of the dualisms of that tradition of domination with which he ostensibly wishes to break.

Animation victims: an abridged history of animated response -- Animated history -- The movement of accessories -- Fabric extensions and textual supplements from modern and antique fragments -- The movement of snakes -- Pneumatic impulses and bygone appendages from Philo to Warburg -- The afterlife of crystals -- Art historical biology and the animation of the inorganic -- Inorganic culture -- Nudes in the forest -- Models, sciences, and legends in a landscape by Léger -- Malicious houses -- (...) Animism and animosity in German architecture and film from Mies to Murnau -- Daphne's legacy -- Architecture, psychoanalysis, and petrification. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to analyse Alexander von Humboldt's views on the theory of evolution and tackle the following question: Can Humboldt be considered an evolutionist? I seek to show that Humboldt acknowledges three essential Darwinian elements of the theory of evolution: fossil records, the geographical distribution of species and the struggle for survival. Further, Humboldt recognises a special relation between the natural environment and organic life, and understands it in light of his naturalistic holism. This holism reveals (...) the unity of organic and inorganic nature and highlights the agency of organic life whilst allowing it to create and preserve the adaptive conditions in the natural environment. Accordingly, I argue that Humboldt believes some kind of evolutionary process happens in nature. However, due to the immense influence of Kant’s transcendental study and the rigid utilisation of the empirical method, Humboldt concludes that we cannot acquire knowledge of the exact course of the evolutionary process. This, however, does not imply Humboldt discredits the theory of evolution. (shrink)

I defend extreme formalism about the aesthetics of inorganic nature. I outline the general issue over aesthetic formalism as it manifests itself in the visual arts. The main issue is over whether we need to know about the history of artworks in order to appreciate them aesthetically. I then turn to nature and concede that with organic nature we need to know a thing's biological kinds if we are fully to appreciate it. However, with in organic (...) nature I deny that we need to know the deeper nature of the things we experience. What is important, I argue, are the appearances of those things not their real natures. I consider the beauty of clouds, which depends on an illusion of solidity, and I argue that scientific knowledge does not reveal beauty that is not available to the ignoramous. There is only the beauty of appearances, and it does not matter whether those appearances are accurate or illusory. (shrink)

Kuhn’s “essential tension” between conservative and innovative imperatives in enquiry has an empirical analogue—between the potential benefits of collectivization of enquiry and the social dynamic impediments to effective sharing of information and insights in collective settings. A range of empirical materials from social psychology and organization theory are considered which bear on the issue of balancing these opposing forces and an institution is described in which they are balanced in a way which is appropriate for collective knowledge production.

Following the revival in the last decades of the concept of “organism”, scholarly literature in philosophy of science has shown growing historical interest in the theory of Immanuel Kant, one of the “fathers” of the concept of self-organisation. Yet some recent theoretical developments suggest that self-organisation alone cannot fully account for the all-important dimension of autonomy of the living. Autonomy appears to also have a genuine “interactive” dimension, which concerns the organism’s functional interactions with the environment and does not simply (...) derive from its internal organisation. Against this background, we focus on a family of natural philosophical approaches that historically have already strongly taken in account this aspect of autonomy, notably going beyond Kant’s perspective on self-organisation. We thus review Hegel, Plessner, and Jonas’ different perspectives on living beings, focussing in particular on four points: the distinction between organic and inorganic, the theory of biological organisation, the processuality of the living, and the “boundary” between inside and outside, through which the organism establishes its relationship to the environment. We, then, compare the three perspectives on these four points, and finally address the question of what advantages their contribution present—especially compared to Kant’s theory—with respect to the topic of organism’s autonomy. This could help—we hope—to better understand what is at the stake still today. (shrink)

In this work, I explore and critically evaluate Aristotle’s views on the naturalness of dying from old age. His views are not straightforward, because Aristotle regards old age as a kind of decay and he talks about decay sometimes as natural and sometimes as unnatural. Nature, according to Aristotle, has two aspects, matter and form. I argue that, in Aristotle’s system, decay is always materially natural but formally unnatural. Likewise, natural death is death caused by old age and although (...) getting old is never formally natural, it is, in a particular sense, materially natural. In Aristotle’s view, getting old does not have the same mechanism as inorganic decay such as wine’s turning into vinegar, but it is a result of the materially natural decay of lungs, which leads to the exhaustion of the vital heat in the heart. (shrink)

Metaphors of nature and organism play a central role in the epistemes of the Western culture and arts. The entire project of the 'modern' meant a separation of man from the cosmos and its laws. Signs and symbols are thought to be arbitrary and conventional social constructions. However, there are many returns to iconic imitations of nature and biological principles also in such an esoteric art as music. One of the highest aesthetic categories in Western art music is (...) the so-called 'organic growth' which particularly manifests in symphony. The concepts of 'organic/inorganic' can be used as analytic terms, whereby one might even compare such composers as Jean Sibelius and Gustav Mahler. Music is said to be 'organic' when (I) its theme actors live in their proper Umwelt (or isotopy); (2) all music material stems from the same themes (it is innerly iconic); (3) all musical events follow each other coherently (inner indexicality or the principle of Growth); (4) music strives for some goal (temporality). Moreover the Ueküll idea of a particular lch-Ton of every organism can be turned back to music. Hence we can say that every musical piece is like an 'organism' which has its lch-Ton detennining which signs it accepts and how it acts in the musical environmentof its own and formed by other musical works. (shrink)

I argue that scientific and poetic modes of objectivity are perspectival duals: 'views' from and onto basic natural forces, respectively. I ground this analysis in a general account of objectivity, not in terms of either 'universal' or 'inter-subjective' validity, but as receptivity to basic features of reality. Contra traditionalists, bare truth, factual knowledge, and universally valid representation are not inherently valuable. But modern critics who focus primarily on the self-expressive aspect of science are also wrong to claim that our knowledge (...) is or should be ultimately mediated by ourselves. In objective science, we represent nature as a field of phenomena determined by and within explanatorily-basic physical structures that encode the causal impact of elemental physical forces. These causally-basic forces hence ground the possibility of objective scientific theory, even though (I argue) they are systematically excluded from its representational contents. I show how my notions of force and field emerge partly through my effort to naturalize concepts of 'God' and 'Laws' in 17th-century natural philosophy. In science, we use the structure of basic forces' impact to see corresponding objects. We do not see these forces themselves—and this relates to the 'transcendence' of 'God'. I supplement this historical analysis by critiquing standard accounts of objectivity, and by synthesizing elements from neo-Kantian epistemology and current 'structural' realism into a view that I call 'dynamic structuralism'. Finally, I argue that physics systematically relies on passive characterizations of phenomena like inertia and impressed force. Dynamic alternatives that are just as empirically adequate are possible, but they are non-scientific. Poetic objectivity involves a direct presentation of nature as an order of interacting forces. I elaborate first by developing a novel theory of the relation between beauty and sublimity, mediated by a basic category of 'sensory force' (e.g. a 'singing' tone in a beautiful melody). I then describe the interaction between sensory and affective dimensions of aesthetic experience, in relation to an original historical analysis of passion and 'disinterestedness' in Kant, Schiller and Nietzsche. I synthesize these lines of analysis into a critique of the role of 'expression' in art. I also resist 'spectator'-centric aesthetics, in this connection, by developing an account of artistic objectivity in dialogue with Ruskin's critique of the 'pathetic fallacy'. I contrast artistic objectivity with Romantic ideals of self-expression, while elaborating its positive relation to certain currents within Victorian and Modernist aesthetics, including Imagists' stress on 'exteriority'. My project creatively extends Nietzsche's view that philosophical and scientific theories are 'perspectival' expressions of theorists' drives. It is a virtue of Nietzsche's account that he takes the outlet of strong human drives in creative acts of theorizing to be just one among many higher modes of 'will to power' in nature—many of which are totally impersonal. But Nietzsche is still too focused on self-expression or willing one's own power. Objective science involves external forces' 'expression' in and through us, not just 'expressing' our own powers. And Nietzsche's vitalistic 'will to power' must be replaced by a basic ontology that better accommodates inorganic phenomena, like the 'lawful' order of celestial motions. Thus I aim to de-anthropomorphize and 'de-organicize' post-Kantian notions of willful striving and organic development, while preserving for force the primary ontological and evaluative status that theorists from Schiller and Goethe to Schelling and Schlegel to Emerson and Nietzsche attributed to will or to life. (shrink)

Peirce was greatly influenced by Aristotle, particularly on the topic of final cause. Commentators are therefore right to draw on Aristotle in the interpretation of Peirce's teleology. But these commentators sometimes fail to distinguish clearly between formal cause and final cause in Aristotle's philosophy. Unless form and end are clearly distinguished, no sense can be made of Peirce's important claim that 'desires create classes.' Understood in the context of his teleology, this claim may be considered Peirce's answer to nominalists and (...) sceptics on the possibility and status of scientific knowledge. On the basis of an improved view of Peirce's teleology, the objection that inorganic physical events do not admit of teleological explanation can be answered. I argue that the non-teleological alternative leaves the laws of nature and the actions of inorganic matter unexplained. (shrink)

: All known life requires phosphorus (P) in the form of inorganic phosphate (PO43x or Pi) and phosphate-containing organic molecules. Pi serves as the backbone of the nucleic acids that constitute genetic material and as the major repository of chemical energy for metabolism in polyphosphate bonds. Arsenic (As) lies directly below P on the periodic table and so the two elements share many chemical properties, although their chemistries are sufficiently dissimilar that As cannot directly replace P in modern biochemistry. (...) Arsenic is toxic because As and P are similar enough that organisms attempt this substitution. We hypothesize that ancient biochemical systems, analogous to but distinct from those known today, could have utilized arsenate in the equivalent biological role as phosphate. Organisms utilizing such ‘ weird life ’ biochemical pathways may have supported a ‘ shadow biosphere ’ at the time of the origin and early evolution of life on Earth or on other planets. Such organisms may even persist on Earth today, undetected, in unusual niches. (shrink)

The emerging neurocomputational vision of humans as embodied, ecologically embedded, social agents—who shape and are shaped by their environment—offers a golden opportunity to revisit and revise ideas about the physical and information-theoretic underpinnings of life, mind, and consciousness itself. In particular, the active inference framework makes it possible to bridge connections from computational neuroscience and robotics/AI to ecological psychology and phenomenology, revealing common underpinnings and overcoming key limitations. AIF opposes the mechanistic to the reductive, while staying fully grounded in a (...) naturalistic and information-theoretic foundation, using the principle of free energy minimization. The latter provides a theoretical basis for a unified treatment of particles, organisms, and interactive machines, spanning from the inorganic to organic, non-life to life, and natural to artificial agents. We provide a brief introduction to AIF, then explore its implications for evolutionary theory, ecological psychology, embodied phenomenology, and robotics/AI research. We conclude the paper by considering implications for machine consciousness. (shrink)

Recent scholarship has analyzed Hegel’s account of life in the Logic in some detail and has suggested that Hegel provides ways of thinking about organic phenomena that might still be fruitful for us today. However, it failed to clearly distinguish this account from Hegel’s discussion of natural organisms in his Philosophy of Nature and to assess the latter philosophically. In particular, it has not yet been properly discussed that some things that Hegel says about organic phenomena there suggest that (...) his position is objectionably vitalist in that he believes investigating physical and chemical properties of organisms is irrelevant for understanding organic phenomena. I argue that Hegel’s core account of life does not imply this sort of a vitalist position. While some claims Hegel makes suggest that he believed inorganic sciences to be of no relevance for understanding organic phenomena, his core position is that they are merely not sufficient for the full understanding of such phenomena. From this discussion I draw a further consequence that the multi-level structure of nature presented in the Philosophy of Nature points to different properties of natural objects, rather than to distinct domains of objects. (shrink)

This paper explores the scholastic debate about antiperistasis, a mechanism in Aristotle’s dynamics described in the first book of Meteorology as an intensification of a quality caused by the action of the contrary one. After having distinguished this process from a homonymous, but totally different, principle concerning the dynamics of fluids that Aristotle describes in his Physics, I focus on the medieval reception of the former. Scholastic commentators oriented their exegetical effort in elaborating a consistent explanation of an apparently paradoxical (...) process like the intensification of a quality by the opposite one. From the fourteenth century onwards, most of the commentators resorted to the theory of the multiplication of species, according to which each entity acts through the emission of simulacra of the objects (species) that spread spherically in the medium. When these rays encounter an obstacle, such as a contrary quality, they are pushed back towards their source. The reflection of the species determined by the surrounding and opposite quality produces a concentration of the first one, which is therefore intensified. Another distinctive feature of the scholastic interpretation of Aristotle’s antiperistasis is the convergence between the discussions on inorganic and organic matter, physical and medical discourse. This convergence found its most significant expression in the adoption of the model described in the first book of Aristotle’s Meteorology to the biological context of Hippocrates’s Aphorisms I, 15. Following Galen’s exegesis of this passage, medieval commentators established a link between physics and medicine substantially extraneous to Aristotle’s theory. (shrink)

What is life? For four centuries, it has been believed that the only possible scientific approach to this question proceeds from the Cartesian metaphor -- organism as machine. Therefore, organisms are to be studied and characterized the same way "machines" are; the same way any inorganic system is. Robert Rosen argues that such a view is neither necessary nor sufficient to answer the question. He asserts that life is not a specialization of mechanism, but rather a sweeping generalization of (...) it. Above all, Rosen argues that renouncing mechanism does not mean abandoning science. A radical alternative is proposed, drawn equally from experience in biology, physics, and mathematics; an alternative which draws attention to a new class of complex systems, which are radically different from mechanism. (shrink)

Beginning the nineteenth-century and continuing down to the present, many authors writing on the history of geology and paleontology have attributed the theory that fossils were inorganic formations produced within the earth, rather than by the deposition of living organisms, to the ancient Greeks and Romans. Some have even gone so far as to claim this was the consensus view in the classical period up through the Middle Ages. In fact, such a notion was entirely foreign to ancient and (...) medieval thought and only appeared within the manifold of ‘Renaissance episteme,’ the characteristics of which have often been projected backwards by some historians onto earlier periods. This paper endeavors to correct this error, explain the development of the Renaissance view, describe certain ancient precedents thereof, and trace the history of the misinterpretation in the literature. -/- . (shrink)

The paper examines the book Martin Buber’s Theopolitics and analyzes the conflict between the hierarchy in nature and in human society. Buber qualifies our relations to nature and to other non-living objects as darker than human relations. This creates an imbalance between the human You and the other type of You. This reflection allows us to think about the meaning of the principle of humanity in relation to personhood, and in relation to different forms of communities (natural, or (...) inorganic communities). It is an important question in the light of “conflicts” and tensions created by the environmental crisis we are facing today. The paper explains how to use the word “conflict” in this context and whether it is justified. (shrink)

Through a detailed explication of Bernard Bolzano's semantics of natural kind terms, I elucidate why and to what extent he should be recognized as a remarkable anticipator of semantic externalism. Bolzano deals with kind terms in a brief sub-section of the first volume of his Theory of Science. He divides such terms into two sub-categories, roughly corresponding to organic and inorganic kinds. It is Bolzano's account of inorganic kind terms, such as ‘gold’, that confers on him the status (...) of an anticipator of semantic externalism. He argues that ‘gold’ may be used in a way such that the superficial attributes that language users associate with it merely serve to enable them to recognize its instances. They do not, however, constitute the idea designated by the term nor do they determine its extension. Instead, the term designates an idea representing gold's unknown inner attributes, which are causally responsible for its superficial attributes. (shrink)

Neo-Humanist Luc Ferry (1995) has compared deep ecology's declarations of intrinsic value in nature to the Third Reich's nature protection laws, which prohibit maltreatment of animals having "worth in themselves." Ferry's questionable approach fails to document the relationship between Nazi environmentalism and Nazi racism. German high art and mass media historically presented nature as dualistic, and portrayed Untermenschen as unnatural or inorganic. Nazi propaganda excluded Jews from nature, and identified traditional Jews as cruel to animals. (...) Ferry's idealization of Humanism under reports the pervasiveness of anti-Semitism in European thought, including the French Enlightenment. © 1999 Elsevier Science Inc. (shrink)

All organised bodies are composed of parts, similar to those composing inorganic nature, and which have even themselves existed in an inorganic state; but the phenomena of life, which result from the juxtaposition of those parts in a certain manner, bear no analogy to any of the effects which would be produced by the action of the component substances considered as mere physical agents. To whatever degree we might imagine our knowledge of the properties of the several (...) ingredients of a living body to be extended and perfected, it is certain that no mere summing up of the separate actions of those elements will ever amount to the action of the living body itself. (shrink)

The general inorganic nature of traditional selection theory (based on differential growth between any two systems) is pointed out, wherefrom it follows that this theory cannot provide explanations for the characteristics of organic evolution. Specific biophysical aspects enter with the complexity of macro-molecules: vital physical conditions for the perpetuation of the system, irrevocable extinction (= death) and random change leading to novelty, are the result of complexity per se. Further biophysical properties are a direct function of the pathway (...) along which random mutation in nucleic acids is converted into continuous protein — (specifically enzyme) — function, from there into organismic phenotype with fitness components which may, or may not, correspond to identifiable structural units in DNA. The general machine-like properties of enzymes, in that there is no additive relationship between structural (amino acid) composition and functional output, is discussed in more detail. The continuous growth functions of molecular concentrations, directed by enzyme turnover, determine simple laws of growth and morphogenesis in the organic hierarchy and thus of phenotype. Thus, the combined effect of DNA-structure and of environmental parameters (temperature, pressure, pH, etc.) on protein function determines ultimately the actual phenotype and hence, quality and intensity of genotypic selection. (shrink)

This study is defined within the context of the critical posthuman project of decentring humanist subjectivity. We argue that because agential realism, and the agency and performativity that go with it, do not enable non-human matter to be accountable, only human matter, in its intra-active becoming with non-human matter, can support an ethical project. Secondly, we map our understanding of Barad’s agential realism, explaining the importance of agential cuts in phenomena-in-their-becoming that are the world worlding itself, and evaluate ethics, agency, (...) and performativity in this material-discursive framework. Thirdly, understanding the material-discursive to underpin storied matter, we engage it via some clarification of narrative, and narrative agency. We conclude that much organic or inorganic nature as non-human matter is directional and responsive, so alive and generative and, in this sense, capable of worlding itself. However, it does not tell its own stories in the process. (shrink)

It is not surprising that in a time of intensified ecological awareness a new appreciation of nature and the inanimate world arises. Two examples are panpsychism and deep incarnation. Consciousness studies flourish and are related to nature, the animal world and inorganic nature. A metaphysics of consciousness emerges, of which panpsychism is a good example. Panpsychism or panconsciousness or speculative realism endows all matter with a form of consciousness, energy and experience. The consciousness question is increasingly (...) linked to the quantum world, which offers some option in bridging mind and reality, consciousness and matter. In this regard Kauffman's notion of 'triad' is referred to as well as the implied idea of cosmic mind. This is related to the notion of 'deep incarnation' as introduced by Gregersen. Some analogical links are made between panpsychism and deep incarnation. (shrink)

Katherine Sarah Moody and Steven Shakespeare begin this collection of essays, produced from the inaugural conference of the Association for Continental Philosophy of Religion (Liverpool Hope University, 2009), by reflecting on life’s ‘haunting’ of philosophy. Life’s dynamism—constantly shifting, fluctuating, hesitating and pushing forward, stretching between birth and death in anything but a safely predictable manner—has always been problematic for philosophy, resisting categorisation and explanation. They present life as an ongoing hermeneutical negotiation, wherein ‘lies the possibility of affirmation’ (p. 1). However, (...) from which standpoint should we affirm life? Immanence or transcendence? Or, with Derrida, should we foster a notion of survival that confounds this dualistic separation (p. 2)?Starting with Kant and Hegel, the editors provide a contextual background and discuss the problems of separating organic life from inorganic nature and the organic human body from unifying super. (shrink)

This essay explores the nihilistic coincidence of the ascetic ideal and Nietzsche’s localization of science in the conceptual world of anarchic socialismas Nietzsche indicts the uncritical convictions of modern science by way of a critique of the causa sui, questioning both religion and the enlightenment as well asboth free and unfree will and condemning the “poor philology” enshrined in the language of the “laws” of nature. Reviewing the history of philosophical nihilismin the context of Nietzsche’s “tragic knowledge” along with (...) political readings of nihilism, willing nothing rather than not willing at all, today’s this-worldly and very planetary nihilism includes the virtual loci of technological desire (literally willing nothing) as well as the perpetual and consequently pointless threat of nuclear annihilation and the routine or ordinary annihilation of plant and animal life as of inorganic nature. (shrink)

In Functional Beauty, Glenn Parsons and Allen Carlson defend the importance of Functional Beauty—that is, the view that an item's fitness (or otherwise) for its proper function is a source of positive (or negative) aesthetic value—within a unified comprehensive aesthetic theory that encompasses art, the everyday, animals and organic nature, natural environments and inorganic nature, and artifacts. In the following section, I outline the main lines of argument presented in the book. I then criticize some of these (...) arguments. I do so, however, from the perspective of someone who shares the authors' commitment to the importance of Functional Beauty and their dismay at its neglect in contemporary aesthetic theory. .. (shrink)

This paper argues that Nietzsche is a panpsychist. Panpsychism holds that mental features are ubiquitous and fundamental in reality. I first argue that Nietzsche’s rejection of Cartesian dualism leads him to substance monism. To better understand his monism, I examine Nietzsche’s rejection of Newtonian atomism. Nietzsche holds that bundles of forces, or will to power, are more fundamental than hard, extended atoms. So, will to power is fundamental. I then investigate Nietzsche’s remarks on organic and inorganic nature to (...) show that he believes both are will to power. So, will to power is ubiquitous. The final step to panpsychism is to show that Nietzsche believes will to power exhibits mental qualities. If all goes well, it should emerge that Nietzsche thinks mental features are fundamental and ubiquitous in reality. (shrink)

The commonest misunderstanding of Schopenhauer is that he taught, contradicting Kant, that we can have direct knowledge of the noumenon. Then there is the mistake that this noumenon is the will understood in a conative sense, the will as we experience it in agency, or the will to live, or the will to power. A careful reading of Schopenhauer's work is able to show that these are misinterpretations. He does not believe we can know the noumenon; and by ‘will’ he (...) means a blind force that is as present in inorganic nature as elsewhere. It was an error on Schopenhauer's part to use the term ‘will’ in a way that invites these misunderstandings; but the damage has been done. (shrink)

In this study the notion of mechanistic entities is analyzed as it has been conceptualized by Hermann Lotze in his article Life. Vital Force (1842), the metaphysical foundation of which has recourse to his Metaphysik (1841) and Logik (1843). According to Lotze, explanations in the sciences are arguments which have a syntactic and a semantic structure—similar to that which became later known as the DN-model of explanation. The syntactic structure is delineated by ontological forms, the semantic by cosmological ones; the (...) latter comprise the preconditions for the construction of appearances in accord with the ontological forms. Mechanisms are embedded into this logical framework by representing the more complex spatio-temporal arrangements of cosmological entities. The coordinated model of a mechanism is a reductive type of explanation. This study also demonstrates how Lotze made use of his concept of mechanisms in order to explain law-like and probabilistic events in organic and inorganic nature, thereby establishing an original ‘oligomeric’ (i. e., a fraction of the parts of a system determines its development) variant of a preformative theory of ontogenesis which anticipates modern concepts of genetic determination. In this context, Lotze alludes to paradigms of dissipative structures. The relevance of these reflections for subsequent theories is shown by contrasting them with Schrödinger’s theory of organisms. Finally, a comparison of some aspects of Lotze’s concept of mechanisms with equivalent aspects of current normative approaches confirms that essential elements of the latter versions can be retrieved in the former one. Above that, Lotze employs the teleological aspect of ontological forms in order to determine the extent of the mechanistic system under consideration. He further differentiates three modal states of mechanisms and includes a concept to explain exceptions or irregularities. The concept of ‘activity’ is strictly excluded from his account and shown to be a metaphysical illusion. (shrink)

In many contemporary philosophical writings, what is most surprising to me is not the things asserted, nor those denied, but those not even mentioned . Several of these slighted topics are summed up in the title of this essay. At the age of twenty, when I was not reading any technical philosophers, nor any author who held an essentially social view of experience, I attempted to persuade myself of the adequacy of a non-social view, expressed partly in a self-interest theory (...) of motivation, and partly in an idea of perception as experience of things not themselves constituted by any sort of experiences. So far from succeeding in this attempt, I began to find reasons for regarding both motivation and perception as manifestations of a single principle, that of the overlapping or inter-individual unity of minds, not simply of human minds, but of mind on various levels of, nature, including inorganic nature. This overlapping I thought I found in experience itself, and not merely through speculation or postulation. Subsequent reading in philosophy has not shown me a basic error in Hhis early philosophizing, but only a vagueness and blurring of dis; Jinctions which, when taken into account, strengthen rather than weaken the case. (shrink)

How did life come into existence on Earth? Although many scientific theories and hypotheses have been drawn, we have not yet been able to provide a detailed answer to this fundamental question. What if intelligent computers would someday be in a condition to postulate their own evolution theory which would explain how they came into the world, how would this theory look like? And how would it stand in comparison to the humans’ theory? Let us suppose that a thousand years (...) from now, intelligent and self-aware computers who, for any reason whatsoever, had lost all contacts with humans, and had continued to self-develop and improve by themselves, slowly began to wonder about how they came into the world? These intelligent computers may eventually develop a coherent theory of evolution, which would seemingly explain their existence. How would their theory stand in comparison to our theory of evolution? Would it be less comprehensive or viable? Taking into consideration the inorganic nature of computers, their relative simplicity compared to the human body, and the closeness of their components to the surrounding inorganic environment, it would not be a surprise if their theory would be more plausible than that of the humans. So, what would this signify and mean to our scientific theories in general? (shrink)

Emanuel Swedenborg has been a literary celebrity for more than two centuries because of his vivid depictions of heaven and hell. But to a considerable extent this renown has also excluded him from the history of science, to which he actually belongs. He was active as an exegete and a visionary only during the last twenty‐five years of his long life, and before he got a divine call to found a new Christian church he had published a great number of (...) scientific works.Immanuel Kant's negative polemics in Träume eines Geistersehers offers an explanation as to why historians of science have only rarely taken an interest in Swedenborg, but it is not the only one. Swedenborg does not seem to have exerted any particular impact on contemporary science, and many of his writings—for example, the voluminous manuscripts on the human brain—remained unpublished for more than a century. He was employed not as a university professor but as a civil servant in the College of Mines, and therefore he had no actual disciples. Consequently his contributions to science have mostly been studied by literary historians as precursors to his visionary works.Francesca Maria Crasta, an Italian historian of science, has reacted against the prevailing views that depict Swedenborg as a visionary fool. As she declares in the preface to this new book on Swedenborg's philosophy of nature, she set out to study him as a scientist in the context of his time, an approach that perhaps makes him less exciting but certainly better defined historically. Within self‐imposed limits she has carried out her task quite well. She has carefully analyzed the scientific works published through 1734, including the magnum opus Principia rerum naturalium published in that year. This means that she has discussed Swedenborg's studies of inorganic nature in toto. On the other hand, she has abstained from addressing his extensive studies of the human body during the following decade, an effort that resulted in two large works in print and a great number of posthumously published manuscripts.The title of Crasta's book may therefore arouse unmet expectations, but what it does provide is valuable enough. The author starts with a survey of Swedenborg's works in natural philosophy from 1716 to 1734, in which she proves herself to be well versed both in the original sources and in the secondary literature. In the next four chapters she then discusses, in sequence, how Swedenborg discerned the origin of the universe in the mathematical point and its further development up to the birth of the planetary system through a series of finite particles. She emphasizes that Swedenborg got his decisive inspiration from Descartes, an author “constantly present although very seldom directly quoted in the Swedenborgian Principia” . No doubt this is a correct observation; the notorious scarcity of references in Swedenborg's writings makes life complicated for those who are trying to describe his intellectual background in detail.It is not surprising, then, that Crasta has not been able to detect any previously unknown sources. However, she has presented fresh and interesting aspects of the intellectual environment in which Swedenborg's philosophy of nature took shape. One example is her comparisons between Swedenborg's, Leibniz's, and Vico's ways of using the concepts of “mathematical” and “metaphysical” point, which show that Leibniz and Vico distinguish clearly between them while Swedenborg lets them merge. In that context she has also noticed that in the later parts of the Principia Swedenborg starts to make use of eggs and similar biological metaphors . This is an important observation that lends support to her thesis that mechanistic Cartesianism is balanced in Swedenborg's philosophy of nature by the influence of Leibniz. Quite reasonably, Crasta also maintains that Swedenborg's presentation of magnetism comes much closer to Leibniz's optimism than to the Neoplatonic idea of decay he had met in Thomas Burnet .Another topic of particular interest is the question of a potential Swedenborgian influence on Kant's Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels , although not as transmitted by Buffon, as has sometimes been assumed, but by Thomas Wright's An Original Theory or New Hypothesis of the Universe . Crasta has been unable to reach a firm conclusion, but she has proved that this is an issue well worth raising. Despite some inaccuracies with regard to chronological and bibliographical data, this learned book is a substantial contribution to our understanding of Emanuel Swedenborg as a scientist in his time. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to do a “diffractive reading” of texts by Karl Marx and Michel Serres. A diffractive reading, as this term is used by thinkers like Karen Barad, aims at the appearance of something new from the confrontation of two texts that at first sight seem to have very little to do with each other. I do a close reading of the start of “The Chapter on Capital (Continuation)” (from Notebook 5 in the Grundrisse), where Marx (...) speaks about nature, the land, and about how the common was lived by German tribes (he rejects the way the Romans speak of the Ager Publicus because of its already existing link to property). The German tribes on the contrary practice their community through a Vereinigung and not through a Verein which means that what binds them is temporary, caused by a need, and not institutionalized indefinitely. More important even, he speaks of the land as part of the commune, as part of us temporarily, and caused by a need. This “inorganic self,” which is how he defines the land that feeds us, and thus belongs to us, is what gives rise to our being and is thus an inextricable part of who we are. Then, I turn to Serres, who, in his book The Five Senses also analyzes what gives form to us. Starting from the etymological analysis of the Homo sapiens, in which Homo refers to humus, the rich topsoil of the earth and sapiens to sapient, to “having a taste for something,” Serres too speaks of the earth that feeds us. Their earthly analysis of what forces us to think then brings me to take another look at how we think about intelligence today, and how the alienation that both Marx and Serres are speaking of, seems to have installed itself in how we are imagining technology and food. I talk of how the American military designs meals for the American soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, knowing that “the sense of home” should be included in their ready-to-eat meals. I talk of the Museum for Forgotten Skills, an art project set up by Casco Art Institute, in Utrecht (the Netherlands), in which a new population was introduced to their land, to the idea of becoming part of the community again, taking part in its rituals, in understanding the land, the language and the history accompanying it. My conclusion, in line with Serres (and Marx) is not very uplifting though. Alienation, which in the end is all about how we have alienated ourselves from the land, from the earth, prevents us from living together, from becoming a community, and in the end, from living a life. (shrink)

Various understandings and definitions of time will be reviewed. The nature and structure of time will be reviewed and the concepts of time and passage of time will be refreshed. The fundamental role played by energy and four natural forces in the actions, reactions and interactions concerning matter, anti-matter, energy in space and time will be critically analyzed. The reality how time is constructed during the construction of materials will be presented and discussed. The classical and quantum ideas in (...) this regard will be comprehensively studied. How these ideas will give us a fresh insight about the nature, structure and role of time in the construction of materials through natural scientific and manmade processes will be highlighted. The relations among matter, anti-matter, energy and time will be freshly stated. The milli-, micro-, nano, pico-, femto-, atto-times will be qualitatively analyzed considering physical, inorganic, organic and bio-materials and their construction and structure. The physics of timelessness also will be put forward. -/- . (shrink)

The title of this work may seem to beg an important question, since it rests on the assumption that Diderot has a 'concept of physical energy'. Indeed the aim of the study is, in part, to assemble evidence in support of the acte de foi implicit in its title. I am using 'physical energy' in a loose sense, as a convenient term to denote 'what matter can do' as distinct from 'what matter is made of'. Hence it may be taken (...) as broadly synonymous with 'power' or 'force', encompassing both active and potential forms, and thus corresponding to a combination of the fourth and fifth senses identified by the Oxford English Dictionary: 4. Power actively and efficiently displayed or exerted. 5. Power not necessarily manifested in action; ability or capacity to produce an effect. Modern subatomic physics, of course, recognises no such distinction between 'being' and 'doing'; at a fundamental level, matter-as-substance and matter-as-energy are interchangeable (and, as I shall argue towards the end of the study, Diderot himself comes close to a similar position). Nevertheless, the division is both justifiable and useful within the context of eighteenth-century philosophies of nature. For, as many scholars have pointed out, the trend towards nature as an integrated, active phenomenon, in place of the cartesian view of passive tendue only incidentally endowed with motion, was crucial to the development of scientific thought in the mid-eighteenth century. Debate and development on such issues as Newtonian attraction, inertia, electricity and magnetism, chemical reactions, not only contributed directly to the advancement of physics and chemistry, but also (like cartesian mechanism) impinged upon the perennial biological questions, themselves being investigated from a new and exciting angle. As a philosopher rather than a practising scientist, Diderot was ideally placed to draw freely and creatively on all these areas, and his speculations on what we might call 'the nature of nature' are highly characteristic of the new approach. He comes increasingly to discuss and define natural phenomena (organic and inorganic alike) from the point of view of nature's powers - in the spirit of Renaissance naturalism, but from the perspective of up-to-date scientific findings. It is in this sense that I refer to a 'concept of physical energy'. Given the organic quality of Diderot's thought, it is not surprising to find the idea of energy recurring in other areas of his works. If man is composed of matter - active matter - than all human activity, be it moral, political, aesthetic, becomes capable of interpretation in terms of energy. I share Chouillet's conviction that this is a crucial aspect of Diderot's overall philosophy, which deserves to be more widely recognised and more fully understood. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: General Characteristics of the Concept of Natural Life The Path to the Individualization of Matter Chemistry and Individuality: The Appearance and Disappearance of Life Contradiction in Chemicals The Necessary Limits of the Inorganic The Path to the Free Individuality of Life Conclusion References Abbreviations Works Cited.

The recent development and growth oforganic livestock farming and the relateddevelopment of national and internationalregulations has fueled discussions amongscientists and philosophers concerning theproper conceptualization of animal welfare.These discussions on livestock welfare inorganic farming draw on the conventionaldiscussions and disputes on animal welfare thatinvolve issues such as different definitions ofwelfare (clinical health, absence of suffering,sum of positive and negative experiences,etc.), the possibility for objective measuresof animal welfare, and the acceptable level ofwelfare. It seems clear that livestock welfareis a value-laden concept (...) and that animalwelfare science cannot be made independent ofquestions of values and ethics. The questioninvestigated here is whether those values thatunderpin organic farming, in particular, alsoaffect the interpretation of livestock welfare,and, if so, how. While some of the issuesraised in connection with organic farming arerelatively uncontroversial, others are not. Theintroduction of organic farming values seems tointroduce new criteria for what counts as goodanimal welfare, as well as a different ethicalbasis for making moral decisions on welfare.Organic farming embodies distinctive systemicor communitarian ethical ideas and the organicvalues are connected to a systemic conceptionof nature, of agriculture, of the farm, and ofthe animal. The new criteria of welfare arerelated to concepts such as naturalness,harmony, integrity, and care. While the organicvalues overlap with those involved in theconventional discussion of animal welfare, someof them suggest a need to set new prioritiesand to re-conceptualize animal welfare – forexample, with respect to ``naturalness,'''' inrelation to the possibilities for expression ofnatural behavior and in relation to animalintegrity as a concept for organismic harmony.The organic perspective also seems to suggest awider range of solutions to welfare problemsthan changes in farm routines or operations onthe animals. The systemic solutions include thechoice and reproduction of suitable breeds,changes in the farm structure, and changes inthe larger production and consumption system – including consumer perceptions andpreferences. But the organic values may alsocall for sacrifices of individual welfare in aconventional sense in order to advance welfarefrom the perspective of organic farming.Whether this is good or bad cannot be decidedwithout entering into an inquiry and discussionof the values and ethics involved. (shrink)