In this Book
- The Human Eros: Eco-ontology and the Aesthetics of Existence
- Book
- 2013
- Published by: Fordham University Press
- Series: American Philosophy
summary
The Human Eros: Eco-ontology and the Aesthetics of Existence explores themes in classical American philosophy, primarily that of John Dewey, but also in the thought of Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Santayana, and Native American traditions. The primary claim is that human beings exist with a need for the experience of meaning and value, a “Human Eros.” Our various cultures are symbolic environments or “spiritual ecologies” within which the Human Eros can thrive. This is how we inhabit the earth. Encircling and sustaining our cultural existence is nature. Western philosophy has not generally provided adequate conceptual models for thinking ecologically. Thus the idea of “eco-ontology” undertakes to explore ways in which this might be done beginning with the primacy of Nature over Being, but also including the recognition of possibility and potentiality as inherent aspects of existence. I argue for the centrality of Dewey for an effective ecological philosophy. Both “pragmatism” and “naturalism” need to be contextualized within an emergentist, relational, non-reductive view of nature and an aesthetic, imaginative, non-reductive view of intelligence.
Table of Contents
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- Title Page, Copyright
- pp. i-viii
- Acknowledgments
- pp. xi-xiv
- Introduction
- pp. 1-24
- PART ONE NATURE AND EXPERIENCE
- One The Aesthetics of Reality
- pp. 27-53
- Three Between Being and Emptiness
- pp. 72-102
- Four The Being of Nature
- pp. 103-132
- PART TWO EROS AND IMAGINATION
- Five The Human Eros
- pp. 135-158
- Six Pragmatic Imagination
- pp. 159-179
- Seven John Dewey and the Moral Imagination
- pp. 180-206
- Eight Educating the Democratic Heart
- pp. 207-224
- PART THREE AESTHETICS OF EXISTENCE
- Nine Love Calls Us to Things of This World
- pp. 227-242
- Ten Mountains and Rivers Without End
- pp. 244-262
- Eleven Creating With Coyote
- pp. 263-283
- Twelve Tricksters and Shamans
- pp. 284-300
- PART FOUR SPIRIT AND PHILOSOPHY
- Thirteen Santayana´s Sage
- pp. 303-328
- Fourteen Beauty and the Labyrinth of Evil
- pp. 329-351
- Sixteen Eros and Spirit
- pp. 392-422
- American Philosophy
- pp. 437-442
Additional Information
ISBN
9780823252305
Related ISBN(s)
9780823251209, 9780823251216
MARC Record
OCLC
844436785
Pages
432
Launched on MUSE
2013-06-30
Language
English
Open Access
No