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?