Thinking nature and the nature of thinking : from Eriugena to Emerson / Willemien Otten.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Otten, Willemien, author.

Series:

Cultural memory in the present

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Philosophy of nature.

Nature--Religious aspects.

Nature.

Erigena, Johannes Scotus, approximately 810-approximately 877.

Erigena, Johannes Scotus.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 1803-1882.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo.

Natural theology.

Physical Description:

xv, 284 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, [2020]

Summary:

"This book takes a humanistic and theological approach to the religious culture of the West by emphasizing the importance of thinking about nature. It argues that in the current environmental crisis, our thinking about nature is under siege, for nature is too quickly seen as victimized and humanity too often considered the culprit. Turning to theology as a way out of this bind, the author examines an old tradition of Western religious thought about nature in which God, the self, and nature are placed on a continuum. Engaging various thinkers who have previously (and unduly, to her way of thinking) been left out of religious discussions, the author privileges an unusual pair of protagonists, John the Scot Eriugena, the early medieval theologian and author of the Periphyseon, or The Division of Nature (considered a final word in the tradition of ancient philosophy but also condemned at the Council of Sens in 1225), and modern American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. Arguing that thes e two thinkers shed light on each other while offering a third way between the objectified, instrumentalized nature of contemporary science and environmentalism and the mystical nature that is the exclusive alternative we find in most eco-religious and eco-philosophical thinking, the book rehabilitates the importance of reflecting on nature in terms of nature's own relevance and agency. As she puts her protagonists in conversation with both each other and with a range of further interlocutors, the author casts a wide net, bringing in figures both secular and confessional, remote in time and in space. This coming together of congenial minds makes for a Platonic Symposium of sorts, as she puts it. Eriugena is illuminated via Augustine and Maximus the Confessor, representing the Western and Eastern Christian traditions, respectively; Emerson is at the center of a wider circle, in dialogue with both the continental founder of modern theology, Friedrich Schleiermacher, and the American thin ker of religious experience, William James. The result is not a new natural theology, the tradition of which this book to some extent deconstructs, but rather a religious reconceptualization of the meaning and development of nature in the West"-- Provided by publisher.

"This book takes a humanistic and theological approach to the religious culture of the West by emphasizing the importance of thinking about nature. It argues that in the current environmental crisis, our thinking about nature is under siege, for nature is too quickly seen as victimized and humanity too often considered the culprit. Turning to theology as a way out of this bind, the author examines an old tradition of Western religious thought about nature in which God, the self, and nature are placed on a continuum. Engaging various thinkers who have previously (and unduly, to her way of thinking) been left out of religious discussions, the author privileges an unusual pair of protagonists, John the Scot Eriugena, the early medieval theologian and author of the Periphyseon, or The Division of Nature (considered a final word in the tradition of ancient philosophy but also condemned at the Council of Sens in 1225), and modern American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. Arguing that these two thinkers shed light on each other while offering a third way between the objectified, instrumentalized nature of contemporary science and environmentalism and the mystical nature that is the exclusive alternative we find in most eco-religious and eco-philosophical thinking, the book rehabilitates the importance of reflecting on nature in terms of nature's own relevance and agency. As she puts her protagonists in conversation with both each other and with a range of further interlocutors, the author casts a wide net, bringing in figures both secular and confessional, remote in time and in space. This coming together of congenial minds makes for a Platonic Symposium of sorts, as she puts it. Eriugena is illuminated via Augustine and Maximus the Confessor, representing the Western and Eastern Christian traditions, respectively; Emerson is at the center of a wider circle, in dialogue with both the continental founder of modern theology, Friedrich Schleiermacher, and the American thinker of religious experience, William James. The result is not a new natural theology, the tradition of which this book to some extent deconstructs, but rather a religious reconceptualization of the meaning and development of nature in the West"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Thinking nature in Eriugena and Emerson

Panchristology and the liturgical cosmos of Maximus the Confessor

Creation and the hexaemeron in Augustine

Postscript to part 1 : nature as conversation

Nature as dispositive thought in Schleiermacher's speeches on religion

William James and the science of religious selfhood

Conclusion : (thinking nature) and the nature of thinking

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Otten, Willemien, Thinking nature and the nature of thinking

ISBN:

9781503606708

1503606708

9781503611672

1503611671

OCLC:

1108783953