intelli-junts

Chip Ward gives his take on intelligence with plenty of examples and cynicism in "Is the Crown of Creation a Dunce Cap?" Ward begins with the concept of human intelligence, suggesting that the vast advances and developments of the human race that have placed us at the peak of power on Earth don't reflect the intelligence of the common human; imagine if the educated generations and recorded knowledge disappeared, subsequent generations would quickly plummet to a primitive lifestyle. Furthermore, Ward infers that while we judge the importance of beings on their intelligence, our intelligence largely depends on accumulated mechanical predictability and lacks understanding of long-term dynamics, often leading us to self-harm. Our susceptibility to emotion is also noted as a downfall as it repeatedly results in societies thinking they are smarter than they prove to be with time, seen with each collapsed civilization. Intelligence, according to Ward, can be described as the ability to learn from experience and apply the knowledge for future benefit. Ward links this notion to the "intelligence" of mushrooms that adapt to soil change like computers or the flu virus that annually overcomes the efforts of our top drug designers but I found it hard to buy (the mushroom example being merely mechanically advanced in nature and the success of the flu being due to rapid replication/mutation, as you never actually have the same virus twice). Ward also discusses swarm intelligence, dependent on following simple rules and local stimuli, as highly functional and, thus, valuable. The part about Earth itself having intelligence through feedback loops kindof lost me though, as things like ozone production in response to heightened CO2 levels would be happening if that was true. An important part of Ward's argument was conscious intent as a criterion for learning, suggesting that living things learn differently and thus we cannot make judgements on their intents or value of intelligence. Intelligence is also paralleled with viability through time and the changes it brings, the point being that if we kill ourselves off in our relatively short stay on this planet, we can't be that intelligent. The other side of that claim would mean that the slim-brained sharks are among the most intelligent creatures, as they've been consistently doing their thing since dinosaurs. The connections Ward draws to other animals sometimes came off a bit far-fetched but the point that we should respect this self-organized intelligence and not let our own get out of hand is valid; because if we finally kill ourselves off with war and bound-to-fail sustenance schemes, the sharks will probably laugh pretty hard.

Unrelated, PETA is apparently now in the porn biz? http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/life/peta-to-launch-its-own-porn-site-does-exploiting-women-promote-animal-rights-2561409

Hate, hate, hate. Hate, hate, hate. Double Hate. LOATHE ENTIRELY! -The Grinch

First off, I really enjoyed this article. I thought that the author presented a well thought out and well supported argument against the current connotation of the word "anthropocentric". In short, Midgley argues that the human species as a whole must place atleast a little importance on ourselves, even though it should not be to the level that assuming the earth was created for us. Science shattered this former idea of a universe truly centered around humans. Many, in response to this realization, overcompensated the importance of the human race when they realized what small and insignificant players we are in the universal drama Midgley explains. For example, the followers of the Anthropic Principle represent a radical group who vastly overestimate the importance of humans and even bring us to the level of God. However, Midgley argues, we need a little bit of this drama (emphasis on a little bit). Humans needs to have some sense of destiny and place in the universe. The author suggests that instead of placing ourselves as dominant or supreme above all other living things, we should instead love the other living things a little more (partially because we have indirect duties to our environment and there might even be a tinge of the "human good = natural good" argument in here).
I think the author's stance is very applicable to the world's curent position in the midst of a "go-green" or enviornmental movement. This movement tends to create almost a sense of self-loathing for the humane race. After reading online articles about the evil deeds of those self-centered humans, it is easy to walk away thinking "Gosh, those humans sure do suck". We don't have to be the Grinch! I think that in part, this methodology isn't the most effective way to convince people that the environment is worth saving. Although it does do some good to reflect on ourselves and our society as a whole, I agree with the author that it would be better instead to focus on the good in other living things. If we keep only a mild sense of self-importance, just enough so that we care about ourselves enough to continue personal hygiene and maybe even holding the door for a stranger, then we have more respect and care to spread for the natural environment. Unfortunately, however promising this arguement sounds, I feel like the total transition it would take to get to humanity to the point of reducing our human-centric view of the world would be exceedingly difficult. I'm not sure if we have reached the end of anthropocentrism, but at the very least the author outlines an enticing strategy to improve our conditions if the time does come where we can move past our own big egos and realize that the Earth is something worth saving (is that human-loathing of me?)

On The Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgement

"There is a God; but all that is allowed to us humans is the restricted formula: We cannot conceive of a purposiveness which must be made the basis even of our cognition of the internal possibility of many things in nature and make a comprehensible except by representing them and the world in general as a product of an intelligent cause (a God)" (270). I am constantly frustrated by philosophers who appeal to the existence of God--something intrinsically metaphysical--as an explanation for physical attributes that cannot be explained. However, when the temporal context of these inquiries is taken into account, these thinkers can easily be excused for coming to such a conclusion. After all, Kant is not trying to prove the existence of God, he is simply saying human understanding is limited to the point at which postulating the existence of God is the only way that the seemingly infinite complexity of nature can be explained. I would argue that resignation to not know is more of a testament to the beauty and magnificence of nature than the limits human understanding. He even goes as far as saying that living organisms are not merely machines (woot, woot!): "An organized being is thus not a mere machine, for that has only a motive power, while the organized being possesses in itself a formative power, and indeed one that it communicates to the matter, which does not have it (it organizes the latter): thus it has a self-propagating formative power, which cannot be explained through the capacity for movement alone (that is, mechanism)" (246). Kant appears to responding to Descartes way of explaining nature in terms of art, or techne: "But inner natural perfection, as is possessed by those things that are possible only as a natural ends and hence as organized beings, is not thinkable and explicable in accordance with any physical...it is not thinkable and explicable even through an exact analogy with human art" (247). Art is merely ( I don't mean to demean art only celebrate nature) an imitation of the natural world. It cannot, therefore, fully grasp the complexities that are characteristic in nature, because the imitator can never equal up to its model. We are then left with still much to ponder over, and little to know for certain about the inter-workings of nature (or how to explain them in relation to causes). When we appeal to God, it is a indicator that all other means of understanding have been exhausted.

what about when people walk their dogs and after the dog poops, the owner thoughtfully leaves it on the sidewalk for someone else to step in. The owner clearly cares about the dog, otherwise they would not have been walking it. But they don't give a rat's ass as to who's gonna step in it once there dog has relieved itself. They are arguably being indirectly morally obligated to humans by walking the dog and therefore caring about its well being, but I think that it directly harming people who don't want to walk in waste every time they're walking down the sidewalk.

Kant's "Critique of Teleological Judgment"

Here's Betsy's post on Kant:

Once again I was assigned a long, confusing article, but I will try and summarize Kant’s points concisely and correctly. The ultimate end of his argument in Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgment is to prove that there is a God. This is revealed at the end of the article, so I’ll go through the points that lead up to this conclusion. In the first section, Kant describes natural ends. A natural end is a thing that “exists as a natural end if it is cause and effect of itself”. He gives an example of a tree and how it is its own means to an end or cause and effect. Its species continually regenerates from its own kind; the individual generates or grows from its own material which cannot be provided from an outside source; and even its smallest parts, such as a leaf, depend on the whole and the whole upon the tiny leaf. The tree cannot create energy without its leaves and the leaves cannot exist on their own, so it is a product and an end.

Now that Kant has established what natural ends are, he goes on to explain how they are organized beings. He contrasts key terms in this section, efficient causes and final causes. The first is real causation, or what we think of cause and effect literally. An example would be dominoes hitting each other and creating a chain reaction. The key to this idea is that it only works one way; once the dominoes fall they do not cause the reverse reaction. The second, final causes, is a more ideal, theoretical causation. This connection requires the use of concepts to see how the causation goes in a circle and does not work solely one way. Again he emphasizes that a natural end must produce itself and from its parts that only exist for the sake of the whole.

Next he describes the difference between machine and an organized being. An organized being has capability beyond simple movement, it has “formative power” to organize itself and exist apart from outside causes. At the end of this section Kant seems to undo all he has been arguing by stating that no analogy is appropriate to describe the “inner natural perfection” of organized beings. By saying this, he argues that his own previous analogies are not adequate and cannot explain his argument fully.

Kant’s final point is that we cannot conceive the world or concept without admitting to a being that intentionally started the whole cycle and acted as the “supreme cause”. The last statement seems contradictory because Kant is arguing that we cannot judge if a greater being acts as a catalyst for the world’s processes. In the same sentence he follows with the statement , “we absolutely cannot base the possibility of those natural ends on anything except an intelligent being” (271). My question is what conclusion does Kant ultimately make on this issue? Is he actually trying to prove there is a greater being, namely God, or does he refute this claim by saying it is past our comprehension?

duty

I got beat to the "old yeller" defense so I'm at a bit of a loss....but consider: from the infamous cat-ladies, to whale people (as mentioned by Colin), to Steve Irwin, to all the kids in disney movies with their golden retrievers - human camaraderie with and duty to animals on, or very near, an intrahuman level is not that unheard of; there's a bunch of people that like their animals way more than people. This would suggest self duty is completely self centered (me valuing anything/anyone only because of the way they make me feel) or external duties stretch as far as partial emotional identification will allow (I don't like the feeling of pain, I have a duty to prevent the same feeling from existing in something else; tree-mourning hippies from the video being on the further end).

Turtle, Turtle!

So following Colin M.'s post, there are many people that are dedicated to animals and are continuously working towards making the animals' lives better. They don't just recycle or cut the loops on the plastic coke holders. An example would be like the Sea Turtle Conservancy, which is a large non-profit. Also, many people volunteer (and pay) to go and help sea turtles. These ecovolunteers don't have to pay money to tag sea turtles in Costa Rica, they could very well choose to just sit on a beach and drink margaritas.

My example = All the time!

The difference between a moral duty to oneself and a moral duty to an animal always makes a difference when it comes to practical application. We all breach duties on a regular basis, those to ourselves as well as to others. When it comes to evaluating our actions and intentions, the source of our duties has a huge influence. For example, if I intend to kill a goat with a claw hammer for sheer amusement, I probably won't care all that much about having a moral duty to myself not to do so. But if I recognize that I have a moral duty to the goat itself, I imagine that that would affect my actions considerably, probably resulting in my refraining from killing that goat. By evaluating the pleasure and pain caused by the act, both those of myself and the goat (thoroughly turning this analysis from deontological to utilitarian in the process) it seems clear that the better course of action would be sparing the goat's life.

Moral considerablility is not exclusive to moral agents

I am 100% behind the idea that other animals do not have moral responsibilities to us or to each other, yet I dont believe that this ability to be held responsible is the only determining factor in moral considerability. As I said Monday, moral judgements are making a claim of what is 'good' or 'bad' and I think that Nature definitely should be considered morally! If we eradicate a species from the planet, to me this is a bad thing! A morally wrong thing! Especially if it is not in direct relation to the protection of our own species (which I acknowledge must be our first concern, as we are indeed members of our own species). Thus I think that in the case of extinction, (as we are the only creatures known to cause this) we should be held morally responsible toward nature.

Tastier when treated better

This post is not to say that we should focus on feeding chickens and cattle healthy diets so that they end up tasting good to us when we eat. However, it is true that the meat from these animals tastes better and has better nutritional quality when their diets consist of fresh grass and insects, rather than corn-feed pumped with nasty chemicals that cause harm to the animals whose digestive tracts can't handle it anyway. Cows and chickens that are kept in solitude, being fed this unhealthy diet of corn are suffering. AND their meat is less healthy. If humans create a healthy lifestyle for animals we intend to eat, they will be more nutritional for us, and there is little suffering.

My point is, we both benefit.

Sacrificing one for the other.

I was trying to think of an example to post, and was honestly having a very hard time. However, I did find one interesting observation. Where can we say the duty lies when we feed our pets (such as a snake) live animals? You may be able to argue feeding your pet snake keeps it alive which it turn makes you, the human, happy, thus reflects another indirect duty. However, does this not create some hierarchy among animals; giving your pet snake more value than the mouse you are feeding it? I think this then means that we show direct duty to the snake in which we recognize our duty to sacrifice the mouse for the snake, because the snake is inherently more intelligent or valuable. This could be a stretch to view this scenario as a direct duty towards animals, but regardless I still think the way humans place animals in hierarchies and our reasoning behind this is an interesting debate.

Whale Wars

So before I even get to the gist of my example, I realize it's farfetched now but will explain as I go.

I think that the group of people responsible for the original idea behind what ultimately ended up being documented and made into a TV show--the Discovery show Whale Wars--served a sense of duty to the environment and nature. I understand that once it became a hit TV series, the Sea Shepard crew began to fulfill a duty to the environment as a self-duty to promote ratings, gain fame, gain popularity and support...but the original concept where people put their very lives at stake for the betterment of animals in which they received nothing from--that is selfless. While people could argue that they received 'good feelings' or positive responses from others, I propose that the sheer misery that must be involved with such a 'job' would outweigh any benefits received. Ultimately, i think they were serving a moral duty to nature, the environment and 'the other'.

Regarding Duties to Critters

I found it surprisingly difficult to identify a particular moral claim in relation to the environment (or animals in particular)that cannot be justified in terms of either indirect or direct duties, since assenting to either course does not in of itself specify what those duties are.

Take eating animals. One could take the view that animals are worthy of moral-considerability in of themselves, and therefore we ought not to destroy them or cause them pain, and hence eating meat is unjustified. Equally, one could argue in favor of vegetarianism on the basis that destruction of animal life is unjustified because it is not necessary (since we can arguably satisfy our nutritional needs from other sources) and because the destructiveness that characterizes killing other creatures is harmful to our moral sensibility in our dealings with other humans. Likewise, the reverse position (that it's acceptable to eat animals) can be justified by arguing either that we have no direct duties to animals (and, furthermore that indirect duties are superseded by direct benefits to humans), or that such direct duties as may exist but nonetheless be secondary to concern for humans in a given situation.

Hence, the bare assertion or denial of direct duties to animals does not necessarily imply any particular set of moral judgements as to individual actions. Nonetheless, in reality one would expect the adherents of these positions to often reach different conclusions, with perhaps the major difference being that since the notion of indirect duties to animals is part of a moral system with humans (as the only moral agents) as its end-all and be-all, proponents of this idea would be more likely to assent to actions which promote the tangible well-being of humans at the expense of animals. In other words, in this ethical system, it may be immoral to wantonly destroy natural life (such behavior being degrading to humanity), but the use of natural life for legitimate human purposes is morally unimpeachable (animals and other nonhuman life being means rather than ends, in Kantian terms). The mourning hippies from Colin's video would take another view, of course, and one can safely assume that they adhere to the idea of direct moral duties to the natural world.

One can assert therefore that these two positions regarding duties towards nature are not ethical straitjackets, but their basic outlook does incline their proponents towards positions more or less balanced towards the interests of humanity (in the case of the Kantian, indirect-duty paradigm) or towards non-human nature (in the case of the partisans of direct duties).

What furry friend are you wearing?

Recently, the Western Hollywood Government banned the sale of Furs. The argument: it is unethical to bring harm upon animals for the purpose of entertainment. This legislation is purely symbolic though. Anyone who wishes to buy a fur can easily go a town over for their purchase.

Direct duty to animals

I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty proud of this example =]

Putting an animal "down"- how is this not a direct duty to the animal itself? How does the human stand to gain by this action? Don't we even commonly describe it as "putting the animal out of its misery" which interestingly brings up the notion that animals do suffer and feel pain.

On Thomas Aquinas

This excerpt from The Summa Contra Gentiles by Thomas Aquinas, or Saint Thomas Aquinas, is good continuation of what we have been reading by Aristotle, Bacon, and good ole Descartes. Aquinas' argument seems to be that humans are  intellectual, free creatures with rationality and that all other things are "subject to slavery.". Why? Because humans are the only things capable of "knowing and loving Him" meaning God, who is "the last end of the universe." (Here, I'd like to remind you guys about Aristotle's fourth cause, that the end is the object for the sake of which a thing moves.) And that humans are the only "free" creatures that act on their own accord,  and are "incorruptible ...moreover, unchangeable, except in their choice." Therefore, humans are the closest beings to God and everything else is provided for human use by a Divine power for 1. Perfection of intellect 2. execution of its power and development of its knowledge and 3. Sustaining the body that is united to an intellectual soul.

Now, my favorite part if Aquinas is his statement that "divine providence makes provision for the intellectual creature for its own sake, but for other creatures for the sake of the intellectual creature." I feel like the implications to this could lead to human slavery or something ...oh wait. Also, Aquinas' theory that there is "no wrong" in killing or doing anything to "dumb animals" doesn't fit well with me. Though, I can understand the train of reason if one wants to say that yes, there is a divine God that has placed the world and its resources here for human use. However, if not, then what? Are we still intellectual, free creatures? Do we still have an intelligent soul that strives towards a telos? Because if there is no longer a God there is no longer an unchanging end?

I feel that if we want to say no, Aquinas was wrong, then we can say that animals are more than "for the sake of intelligent creatures" but then we must also say that we are not intellectual, free creatures. But there might be nothing wrong with saying that we are not if it brings about better treatment of animals (including other people) and the planet as a whole. I wonder if we just hate to admit that the best way to live with the surrounding nature is to "downgrade" to being just another higher primate.

Can't wait to hear from you guys! 

here is some fun for everyone (ben will reallly like it haha )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G880gxjj9dI

Deconstructing Mill's Status of Nature

When I first saw the title to John Stuart Mill’s essay “The Amoral Status of Nature”, I became excited and figured that it would be a simple report on nature, as the very title suggests Nature as ‘having no moral restraints, standards, or principles’—neither moral or immoral.

Mill takes up the task set down by many previous thinkers and attempts to unpack what we should consider nature to be as humans and understand how we interact with it. He begins by expressing that the nature of any given thing is the aggregate of all of that thing’s powers and properties. He therefore claims that Nature is inherently the aggregate of the powers and properties of all things. By definition, Nature is ‘the sum of all phenomena’, meaning it encompasses all that does, does not, and could happen; it is a collective name for all the facts of the world, both actual and possible.

Mill philosophizes that to better understand nature we must operationalize it and decide whether it A—is the sum of all powers, properties, and everything that happens as a result of them, or B—only what takes place outside of intentional human intervention. However, as he states earlier, Nature is the sum of all phenomena; does this mean, then, that human intervention should be classified as a distant, perhaps indirect result of nature or as an aberration of such? Mill explains that human action is not centered on what we do to get around nature but rather what law of nature do we use to contradict/surpass another?

Mill writes that man may obey nature but does not guide himself by it—that he may even act directly through nature but it is not always knowingly. Reflecting on Bacon’s piece “The Mastery of Nature”, Mill seems to disagree with his logic of man ‘obeying’ nature as a means of controlling it to his own idea of controlling nature. Mill writes that to ‘control’ one aspect of nature is merely obeying or succumbing to another, and therefore asks if that is not nature merely controlling us? Mill further claims that even if you do count human interaction as a part of nature, any action other than obeying our natural, basic instincts would be an act of meddling with nature. Therefore, if the artificial is no better than the natural, to what end are the arts of life?

Given Mill’s understanding of man’s actions as simply using one aspect of nature to over-power another, I think we could include our intentional actions as a legitimate part of nature, even though he would argue they are deviant acts. I ask then, however, how some actions we take such as tilling and fertilizing a field or mining wells count as such? If they are technically just indirect results of us using nature to overcome nature, they are neither good nor bad, simply natural actions. Finally I think that the way in which Mill writes about humans conquering nature seems to create a concept of nature as ‘the other’, which personifies it into an enemy. Essential to a better and more widespread understanding of nature is our initial acceptance of it as a body to work with, rather than against.

The "Key" to Locke

You can thank Professor Baldwin for the pun. In this excerpt from the Property chapter of his Two Treatises on Civil Government, Locke spends most of his time conjuring up a history of the use of nature as property for humans, quoting the Bible several times as a bastion of credibility. In the same vein as his contemporary Thomas Hobbes, Locke has a somewhat suspicious view of nature in its unperturbed state. While Hobbes famously described human life in the “state of nature” as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” in The Leviathan, Locke sees nature as something that must be molded and shaped by humans in order for it to be of any use to them. Essentially, nature in its unaltered state has no intrinsic value to us.
The key, then, is to accomplish that molding and shaping with one’s own physical labor. By tilling the ground, planting seeds, and cultivating the crops (I may have left out a few steps), a man gives worth through his own labor to a piece of land that was previously worthless. Because of that labor, Locke asserts that that very piece of land is now the property of the man who gave it its worth. Under this system, everyone starts off on a level playing field. Nature in its totality (i.e., the Earth) has been given to mankind by God, so anyone can tromp out into the wilderness and lay claim to Nature by laboring it into submission. Although he doesn’t say it outright, Locke makes the implication that nature must not just be labored upon, but conquered and forced, much like a slave by his master, to perform a specific purpose which it would never be interested in performing on its own. The difference is that Locke has a problem with human slavery, but advocates the conquest of nature with biblical authority.
Therefore, since everyone started off on that level playing field, a man has a duty to use those natural resources as efficiently as possible, not out of any respect for nature, but out of respect for his fellow man. If he uses nature wastefully, he ought to be punished for “invad[ing] his neighbor’s share” of nature itself. While Locke acknowledges that the amount of natural resources on Earth are pretty much boundless and unable to be depleted (that is, in his time), he still advocates prudence in their exploitation. Locke, as a political theorist, is far more interested in nature’s functions as the property of mankind than any exercise in examining nature in itself. Nature is property, property is power, and power is precisely that with which political scientists are concerned. I think we can call that having nature on-Locke.

Abiogenesis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6QYDdgP9eg

Pretty interesting video I remembered seeing at some point; adds to our discussions on matter, form, telos, & Aristotle's points on chance vs. necessity in understanding why things are the way they are. Skip to around 4:00 if prone to bio headaches, let me know what yall think.

Ils ne pensent pas, donc...

Even in reading the title of the selection from Descartes, "Animals as Machines", I anticipate a certain hostile gut reaction as we begin to discuss Descartes' conception of the distinction between human and animal life. Given our inherent sense of the difference in kind between natural creatures and the artificial contraptions that normally go under the name of machine, this thesis naturally provokes objections, amplified no doubt by the affection most of us have felt for various animals (or even animals in general) at one time or another; we do not like to think of our pets as automatons. However, one should note the fairly comprehensive manner in which Descartes' addresses potential rebuttals to his argument, which make critique of this mechanistic view of animal life more fraught than it may seem at first.

In common with Aristotle, Descartes that human art is a sort of copy of nature; hence, to speak of animals as 'mere' machines is not equate a killer whale with a wind-up doll. Rather, artifacts of human design are phenomenally less complicated versions of the designs seen in the natural world (in the same manner as, Descartes might say, our powers of art pale compared to the creative intelligence of God, whose machines natural things are). They also posses the same sort of biological life humans do, yet do not preform any actions that cannot be explain in terms of passions; it is important to note here the sense of passion as something undergone, and hence not a matter of active agency. The faculty of language, Descartes notes, seems to set humanity apart categorically from all natural life. More broadly, while we might grant that animals possess a certain level of intelligence (varying of course from species to species), they do not seem to possess any reflective capacity, which is to rephrase Descartes' contention that they have no thoughts. Hence, to say that animals are machines is not to denigrate them but merely to day they are dependent on natural forces and not on reflective choices for their actions.

The most promising critique of Descartes' thesis seems to me to consist of a deflationary view of human consciousness rather than an exalted view of animal intelligence (that is, the opposite of what he argues his piece is about), but that is another story.

On Isaac Newton's Mechanistic Metaphysics

Newton begins by telling us that all particles have a force of inertia and from that force move. He then claims that some active Principles, like Gravity and Fermentation are not supernatural qualities of a being but are Laws of nature. These laws of nature he says are caused by the supernatural and differ from the Aristotelian sense of occult qualities that lie hid in the body, because these supernatural qualities are carried out and therefore not hidden. He says that in order for philosophy to move on someone must come up with general laws of motion that all corporeal things follow. Ironically, Newton does not answer this for us because it is just too lengthy for him, so he instead tries to answer what the cause of motion is.

He says it is not blind fate that creates this motion it is the act of higher being or God. Newton says that God is more able to move all the living beings he created than we are able to move our bodies. Despite this we are not part of God's body. all of his creatures including us are simply his little puppets that he likes to play with. Newton declares that we are completely subservient beings to God's will and God is able to create particles of any shape and density thus being able to create many different worlds in our universe that he can control.

Newton's explanation of the cause of why things are and why they move is not complicated at all or really new. Its pretty much the book of Genesis mixed in with the fact that we are completely subservient to God and don't think at all on our own.

Thinking & Doing... with Mr. Bacon

In "The Mastery of Nature," Francis Bacon deals with several issues regarding our approaches to having power over nature and understanding nature (which he calls Human Power and Human Knowledge). By power he means our ability to generate and superinduce new nature on a given body, or to physically transform concrete bodies. By knowledge he means our attempts to discover the form, or "nature-engendering nature," of bodies; that is, the Latent or underlying process(es) at work causing things to manifest in their actual material forms.
The term "nature-engendering nature" is rather interesting. I take this to mean the natural law or process that causes bodies to possess a specific nature in the first place. A specific nature leading to the generation of specific natures! This language of Bacon's rather resembles the cyclical notions present in Aristotle's Physics.

Bacon also references the four causes, namely: the material, the formal, the efficient, and the final (or the end), and agrees that "true knowledge is knowledge by causes." He does not regard any of these as particularly useful, however, except form. The final, he says, corrupts all sciences except those dealing with human action (I presume because the idea of action toward an end leads inevitably to anthropomorphism). The efficient and material are only shallowly true when taken, as they almost always are, in isolation from latent processes leading to an object's form. He also cautions us to remember that form does not give existence. He believes that just such an error has lead to the tendency of philosophy to deal with the eternal law, by which all individually formed bodies abide, as a foundation for action as well as knowledge.

Bacon believes that a dichotomy between science and philosophy exists with good reason, and that one must inform the other. He indicates, however, that the roots from which our current science and thought have stemmed were ill-informed in the first place. He accuses modern humanity of attempting to act and think based on grand and ambitious abstractions before taking the time to understand local and practical aspects of reality.

It would be "safer" to begin and raise the sciences from the ground up, perhaps to devote our abilities to dissecting our own ecosystem before we try to understand the mechanics of nuclear fission. I must say that I agree with this position. A fundamental issue with humanity seems to be that our abilities have far, far, far exceeded our needs.

Bacon seems to find a great danger in our tendency to act upon nature that we do not understand. With regard to the "latent process" he mentions, Bacon places its manifestation outside the realm of our senses, rather than simply observable in step-by-step interactions of bodies, and pins it as dependent upon infinitely multitudinous and infinitely minute factors. He acknowledges the complexity of even the most seemingly simple processes and interchanges. The problem then is that we have rashly allowed our human power over nature, and the extent to which we utilize it, to surpass our human knowledge of the very actions we are performing, as well as their consequences. We believe that our understanding is very vast, but do not recognize the level of mystery still present on a local scale. The fact that environmental/ecological science is such a new field speaks volumes of this error. We have philosophized and theorized and formulated our way back in time, forward in time, into the tiniest sub-atomic particle, and out to the farthest reaches of the physical universe; yet, how well do we understand the actual impact that driving an actual car 100 miles has in our actual environment? Or using an actual pesticide? Or an actual oil spill?

Though he never explicitly states it as such, Bacon seems to be criticizing human ambition with regard to science. We fail to recognize the importance of understanding, in a practical way, the innumerable and subtle factors at play in a body, or system, before we set about changing it around.

To deal with these issues, Bacon suggests the allotting of speculation on forms, which are eternal and immutable, to philosophy, rather than the sciences (and to be called metaphysics), and these insights should inform our knowledge; and to the sciences, he allots the matters of specific, ordinary course (calling it physics), with these insights informing our power, or actions.

The significance of this division is as follows:
Rather than great laws that affect celestial bodies and other such non-direct matters, science should focus its attention on practical aspects of reality. Science informs what we are able to do, and should thus investigate our involvement with the real world around us, and should deal with matters of certainty, rather than of abstraction. This helps avoid the danger of advancing our ability beyond our capacity to grasp the implications of that ability. Science deals with real, active processes at work in individual bodies that take forms, but not the forms themselves.

Philosophy, being in a sense the science of knowing, informs what we understand of the essence of the world around us and our place in it. It deals with forms themselves, which are essential and unchanging.


...mm, so: I think that Bacon actually has some very wise and relevant points, buried beneath all this mumbo-jumbo rhetoric! (Why he doesn't say what he means in somewhat more plain language, I shall never understand...)

In essence, I believe Bacon's point to be that our abilities have exceeded our needs to the point of being dangerous. The piece's being titled "The Mastery of Nature" seems almost ironic, as he spends the greater part of it dumping on the way in which we've gone about understanding and acting on nature thus far. True mastery requires a reliable and practical comprehension of the world around us, and the power we have should never become detached from what we know. The two are necessarily interdependent, lest chaos ensue!

With this interpretation, I agree with a lot of what Bacon says. Whaddayall think?

Bacon, creating laws

In Book 1 Bacon introduces a new way of interpreting nature. He believes that "the only hope is true induction," rather than syllogism. There are two ways of discovering truth according to the proposed "induction." The first way (he says, the way we currently use) describes how we make sense of things according to the laws that we create. The other way (he says, the "true" way that has yet to be utilized) suggests that we first gather information from the senses and "particulars" before making the laws. Bacon insists that the first method is wrong because it suggests that we assume things are the way they are due to an artificial principle that man generates. What would be a more accurate interpretation of nature would be if we made sense of what we learn first, create law second.

But is this first method wrong? How are we to create laws if we don't first establish what we understand? Perhaps these aren't so different. What say ye?

The Cycles of Nature

This part of Aristotle's work challenges us to understand and look into the processes by which nature remains ordered. He also tries to determine a cycle with which nature is formed and more often than not followed. Things come to be and the purpose of this being is to meet an end.

One of Aristotle's main arguments in Chapter 8 is that nature always does something for "the sake of which" or in other words because it is necessary. But what is necessary and what determines what is necessary and what is not? Many have tried to attribute the current state of nature to chance "wherever everything happened to come together just as if it had been for the sake of something" , these things were "preserved" because they were " put together advantageously by chance" (66). But this claim complicates things and suggests that nature then, was put together by chance. But, that these "chances" then became the "for the sake of which." However, if we intermingle things that happen by chance and things that happen for a purpose ("the for sake for which" ), the idea of both gets lost.

More importantly it is obvious that nature was put together in a certain way, for a certain purpose. It is a cyclical, structured thing. Nothing as formulaic as nature could be accredited to coincidence. The idea of everything originating by chance is quickly noted by Aristotle as impossible. Everything that exists by nature is "being-for the-sake-of something" (66), which implies that everything comes together in a certain order to meet an end. What then is the end? The chick, or the mature chicken? As we discussed in class, it is necessary to characterize these as two separate things with two separate purposes. The chick exists for the sake of becoming a chicken. The chicken then is the end that the chick seeks to become. The mature chicken, on the other hand, is "being for the sake" of becoming food.

Aristotle's proposals seem cyclical and intertwined. Nature is just that: a cycle. In order to understand all of its parts you have to constantly overlap ideas and return to previous notions in order to understand new ones. The ultimate question I would pose is what determines what is necessary, as I mentioned before, and what is not. And will humans disrupt this cycle enough to where what once was necessary is no longer, disrupting the underlying root of nature's cycles,"the form and material." Or are humans simply a part of nature and its natural cycle.

A Doctor Healing Himself

For the last several class periods we have been focusing on retracing the historical course that philosophy has taken to define what nature “is”. However, up until this point we have examined the history of the philosophy of nature through the lens of third parties. This week that trend comes to an end with an analysis of Aristotle’s physics. Much like our class, in the physics there is much inquisition into what kind of thing nature “is”.

In our study of mechanism we focused on the ways in which nature seems to be ordered by a omnipresent, omnipotent being. According to this view nature is also explained by direct causes that precede one another in time. Lastly, the mechanical conception of nature understands the world as ether, a machine, something waiting to be turned into a machine, or something waiting to be changed by a machine.

Aristotle’s conception of nature is much different than the view of mechanism we have been exploring. I think the most interesting conception of nature that Aristotle presents in opposition to nature is the idea that nature is teleological. Teleology is what Aristotle dubs as the “final” cause. It is “that for the sake of which” something is preformed. Aristotle argues that if art (things that are man made) is purposeful, then nature must also be purposeful.

That nature is purposeful in and of itself is an idea that, in our day and age, is I think is given little credence. In the present day Most Americans are always concerned with what nature can provide us with. We look to nature for our own purposes and to complete our own ends. Whether it is to build our homes, or fuel our cars, we are constantly depending on nature to meet our needs, and using nature to achieve our own ends. Given that we understand our relationship with nature as one that is completely one sided (we are always taking from nature and rarely considering nature's well being outside of ourselves), it is understandable that we would not understand nature as having its own ends.

Aristotle recognizes that nature acts on itself. Nature is constantly creating and destroying itself. Aristotle likens the way that nature acts on itself to a doctor who heals himself. The doctor in this situation is both the cause of his healing, and the source of it. In this way nature distinguishes itself by being both its own cause and its own end. This is observable in all of nature. Whenever nature is destroyed in some way it heals itself. If you trim the dead leaves off of a plant it will cause the plant to grow and flourish.

We have encountered the idea that nature has purpose outside of humankind, before. But Aristotle’s understating of nature as being teleological isn’t simply the idea that nature has purpose outside of humanity, but goes a step further. It claims that nature actually has its own ends to meet, and is the cause of itself meeting those ends completely outside of mankind. When a forest fire begins in order to fertilize the soil beneath it, it has little concern for the people inhabiting its boarders. All the same, the fire must happen for nature to meet its end of continuing to grow and propagate.

In our philosophical exploration of the environment, nature being teleological means several things. We can be like nature and seek our own ends without consideration of the environment just as nature seeks its own ends without consideration of man. We can recognize that nature has little concern for our interests and attempt to control it by building damns, and razing entire forests. Finally we could understand that nature has its own ends independent of us and we should respect those ends in seeking to create those things which Aristotle says will bring nature to a higher potential, not those kinds of creation which eliminate the presence of nature.

The Idea of Nature

Collingwood, in the introduction of The Idea of Nature, begins by explaining the interrelated nature of philosophy and science. He laments the fact that philosophy and the natural sciences have grown apart during the last couple hundred years, stating “it cannot be well that natural science should be assigned exclusively to one class of persons called scientists and philosophy to another class called philosophers” (2). His goal, then, is to build a kind of bridge between the two disciplines such that misunderstandings can be avoided.

Collingwood argues that there are three distinct viewpoints on the idea of nature: the Greek view, the Renaissance view, and the modern view. Natural science for the Greeks “was based on the principle that the world of nature is saturated or permeated by mind” (3). This conception of ‘mind’ is what provided order and regularity (as well as intelligence) to an otherwise chaotic world. He argues that the Greeks conceived of nature as an organism. The Greeks saw in the constant movement and change the entire world as alive.

The second view is the Renaissance view of nature, or what he more accurately refers to as a ‘post-Renaissance’ view. This view of nature is very much the antithesis of the Greek view in that it saw nature as a machine rather than an organism. This mechanistic view of nature meant that nature (as well as the natural objects comprising it) is simply a thing with some specific function designed for some purpose. The one commonality between the two viewpoints is that both “saw in the orderliness of the natural world an expression of intelligence: but for the Greeks this intelligence was nature’s own intelligence, for the Renaissance thinkers it was the intelligences of something other than nature” (5). This ‘other’ intelligence was almost always God or the divine.

The third view is the modern view of nature. Collingwood states that this view began in the late eighteenth century. Both the Greek and renaissance view operated under the assumption that there had to be something unchanging that grounded our knowledge of nature. The two aspects of nature that were unchanging were matter and natural law. The modern view, however, rejects the need for an unchanging foundation. Natural science was able to use the “historical conception of scientifically knowable change” renaming it evolution (13).

Collingwood puts forth four consequences of this new view of nature. The first is that change is no longer cyclical but progressive. Evolution is always moving forward, it can’t ever go back or reach the same point twice (13). The second is that nature is no longer mechanical. According to evolution, nature is always growing and developing. It is never finished. A machine is a “finished product or a closed system” whereas nature is not (14). The third is that teleology is reintroduced. Since nature is continually growing and developing, it must be growing or developing towards something. This aim or goal is the preservation of its own becoming. The fourth is that substance is resolved into function. Substance as structure loses its primacy and allows for nature to be described simply in terms of function.

Perhaps This Is More Environmental Politics But Relevant Nonetheless...

An interesting article about the wildfire's in Texas and Governor Rick Perry's ways of handling them.

http://www.examiner.com/political-buzz-in-national/after-cutting-funding-for-local-fire-departments-rick-perry-demands-fema-help

The Metaphysical Implications of Ecology

J. Baird Callicott takes the comprehensive, historical approach in interpreting ecology’s relationship with metaphysics. Though I don’t necessarily agree with ecology being labeled a “newcomer” science, as the paper mentions it being an area of focus since late 18^th century (402), Callicott nicely integrates it with the hard sciences. Influential historical background is reviewed, from atomic materialism of the ancient Greeks (providing mechanical basis for today’s physics, chemistry, and everything that occurs) to monadic moral psychology, explaining how humans have come to develop applicable rules and manipulations in relation to the external world. Still, the notion of what it is to be a living thing is shown to be disputed. First, the essence of a given living thing is explored as an individual association with one’s form or as a placement in established hierarchies and orders, raising questions over what really influences what a being does and, ultimately, is. External relationships and individual niches are also discussed as proposed defining factors of a being’s essence, further suggesting that one’s environment shapes not only the lifestyle but its form as well. Even consciousness is described as an extension of the environment, explaining it as an adaptation in a long line of developed feelings and neural processes stemming from the mechanical stimulation of the outside world. Considering the larger scale, Callicott discusses nature as an economy, a symbiotic system that trades gases, organic compounds, and energy. Furthermore, the notion of the entire surface of the Earth as a comprehensive organic being is also touched on. Callicott takes one more step by bringing concepts from mass energy equivalence, suggesting that not only are we constantly influenced by and trading parts with the outside, this flow of energy as well as the components and us are all forms of the same thing; this would, fundamentally, define everything as one, explaining Callicott’s notion of ecology as “enlightened self-interest” (407).

Throughout the paper, Callicott builds on the mechanical facts of hard sciences yet clearly stretches laws of physics to complex biospheres. I suppose my question is how much do you buy the concept of the Earth’s surface as a symbiotic organic being? To be honest, this had me playing Avatar in my head half the time. They played on a similar concept yet pseudo-synapses between different living things are clearly fictional. Furthermore, things in a given ecosystem eat each other and clearly have different self-interests, placing the relationship closer to dependence than symbiosis and promoting monadic self interest. As far as the metaphysical equivalence of matter and energy, what did you think? The theory is clearly functional (nuclear energy) but can this uniform composition of things serve as basis for them to operate harmoniously? Still, I thought the point that the environment develops the mind was fairly strong, explaining why we must protect it, if only for our own good.

Really Obama?

Unfortunately, again, the stats show that job growth is stagnate. Evidently, the bill passed in August to raise the debt ceiling did not increase employer optimism, as many in washington had hoped. Now, under the pressure of industry lobbyists, Obama has lacked the resolve necessary to do what is beneficial in the long term, but has, instead, opted to focus solely on the present. This is an article covering his most recent blow to the environmentalist agenda. Not for the faint of heart.

"Human"?

I was very pleased after reading Berry's chapter to find myself taking a surprisingly humanistic viewpoint of his argument. I am normally the one labeled a "hippie" or "radical environmentalist"; it was quite the change for me to speak out on the side of humans. But I think my eye-opening experience of reading this chapter speaks to the strength of Berry's argument.
The first question I struggled with was- what makes us fully human? The best answer I could discern from the reading was that our culture makes us human. But this led me to start thinking about then, what is being human afterall? If humans are defined by their culture and society, then being "human" must be a human construct. By being human, we are an artifact of our own society, and we are set apart from the "wildness" that defines Berry's "nature". As Berry continues by describing humans as both "wild" and "domesticated", he is setting the stage for the juxtaposition of the human and natural. I like the idea that our constructed idea of being "human" is neither entirely within nor separate from what Berry considers wild nature. Without this introduction, I think that Berry's idea of working against nature is actually working against ourselves would seem ridiculous. Now, one can understand that by saving nature, we are saving ourselves.
However much I agreed with the main points of Berry's above argument, there was still one theme that didn't settle with me. Since to be "human" is to be an artifact of human society, we rely on our culture to become "human". However, Berry makes the argument that we must be "human" in order to save nature. In Berry saying that we cannot successfully accomplish any conservation of our planet without first being "human"? How does being more tied to human ideals and values of society make us more apt to save the nature world? Is the author implying that the inherent attentiveness to self-interest is the reason we see extrinsic value in nature and strive to save it?