The human eros : eco-ontology and the aesthetics of existence / Thomas Alexander.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Alexander, Thomas M., 1952-

Series:

American philosophy series (Unnumbered)

American philosophy

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Aesthetics.

Philosophy, American--20th century.

Philosophy, American.

Dewey, John, 1859-1952.

Dewey, John.

Santayana, George, 1863-1952.

Santayana, George.

Physical Description:

xii, 436 pages ; 24 cm.

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Fordham University Press, [2013]

Summary:

The Human Eros explores themes in classical American philosophy, primarily the thought of John Dewey but also that of Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Santayana, and Native American traditions. Alexander's primary claim is that human beings have an inherent need to experience meaning and value, a "Human Eros." Our various cultures are symbolic environments or "spiritual ecologies" within which the Human Eros seeks to thrive. This is how we inhabit the earth. Encircling and sustaining our cultural existence is nature, yet Western philosophy has not provided adequate conceptual models for flunking ecologically. Alexander introduces the idea of "eco-ontology" to explore ways in which this might be done, beginning with the primacy of Nature over Being and including the recognition of possibility and potentiality as inherent aspects of existence. He argues for the centrality of Dewey's thought to an effective ecological philosophy. Both "pragmatism" and "naturalism," he shows, need to be contextualized within an emergentist, relational, nonreductive view of nature and an aesthetic, imaginative, nonreductive view of intelligence. Book jacket.

Contents:

Part I Nature and Experience

1 The Aesthetics of Reality: The Development of Dewey's Ecological Theory of Experience 27

2 Dewey's Denotative-Empirical Method: A Thread through the Labyrinth 54

3 Between Being and Emptiness: Toward an Eco-ontology of Inhabitation 72

4 The Being of Nature: Dewey and Buchler and the Prospect for an Eco-ontology 103

Part II Eros and Imagination

5 The Human Eros 135

6 Pragmatic Imagination 159

7 John Dewey and the Moral Imagination: Beyond Putnam and Rorty toward an Ethics of Meaning 180

8 Educating the Democratic Heart: Pluralism, Traditions, and the Humanities 207

Part III Aesthetics of Existence

9 "Love Calls Us to Things of This World": Santayana's Unbearable Lightness of Being 227

10 Mountains and Rivers without End: The Intertwining of Nature and Spirit in Emerson's Aesthetics 244

11 Creating with Coyote: Toward a Native American Aesthetics 263

12 Tricksters and Shamans: Eros, Mythos, and the Eco-ontological Imagination 284

Part IV Spirit and Philosophy

13 Santayana's Sage: The Disciplines of Aesthetic Enlightenment 303

14 Beauty and the Labyrinth of Evil: Santayana and the Possibility of Naturalistic Mysticism 329

15 The Spirituality of the Possible in John Dewey's A Common Faith 352

16 Eros and Spirit: Toward a Humanistic Philosophy of Culture 392.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780823251209

0823251209

9780823251216

0823251217

OCLC:

811599584