New Visions of Nature: Complexity and Authenticity

ISBN-13: 9789048126101 / Angielski / Twarda / 2009 / 285 str.

Martin Drenthen; Jozef Keulartz; James Proctor

Opis

"New Visions of Nature" focuses on the emergence of these new visions of complex nature in three domains. The first selection of essays reflects public visions of nature, that is, nature as it is experienced, encountered, and instrumentalized by diverse publics. The second selection zooms in on micro nature and explores the world of contemporary genomics. The final section returns to the macro world and discusses the ethics of place in present-day landscape philosophy and environmental ethics. The contributions to this volume explore perceptual and conceptual boundaries between the human and the natural, or between an 'out there' and 'in here.' They attempt to specify how nature has been publicly and genomically constructed, known and described through metaphors and re-envisioned in terms of landscape and place. By parsing out and rendering explicit these divergent views, the volume asks for a re-thinking of our relationship with nature.

Spis treści

Part I: Introduction.- 1. Nature in Motion.- Part II: Public Visions of Nature.- 2. Technological Nature – And the Problem When Good Enough Becomes Good.- 3. 'They Could Have Used a Robot'. Technology, Nature Experience and Human Flourishing.- 4. The Authenticity of Nature: An Exploration of Lay People’s Interpretations in the Netherlands.- 5. The Hierarchical and Unconscious Mind: Reflections on the Authenticity of Nature.- 6. The Problem with Plovers.- 7. About Snow Plovers, Lapwings and Wolves: How to Include Contrasting Visions of Ecologists and Laymen in Decision-making.- Part III: The Genomics View of Nature.- 8. Detachment, Genomics and the Nature of Being Human.- 9. The Detached Animal – On the Technical Nature of Being Human.- 10. Metagenomic Metaphors: New Images of the Human from 'Translational' Genomic Research.- 11. The Metagenomic World-view: A Comment on Eric T. Juengst's ‘Metagenomic Metaphors’.- 12. Genomics Metaphors and Genetic Determinism.- 13. Maps and the Taxonomic Style.- Part IV: Philosophy of Landscape and Place.- 14. 'Thinking Like a Mountain': Ethics and Place as Travelling Concepts.- 15. Towards an Epistemology of Place.- 16. Developing Nature Along Dutch Rivers: Place or Non-place?- 17. Restoring Nature in a Mobile Society.- 18. Between Nativism and Cosmopolitanism: Framing and Reframing in Invasion Biology.- 19. Further Towards a Continuum between Nativism and Cosmopolitanism.- Part V: Conclusions.- 20. Nature, Technology and the Human Condition.- Index.

Blurb

Contemporary visions of nature have been deeply affected by the ongoing interaction and interpenetration of science, nature, and society. These new visions appear to be more complex than older visions of nature and at the same time they seem to challenge our notions of authenticity.

"New Visions of Nature" focuses on the emergence of these new visions of complex nature in three domains. The first selection of essays reflects public visions of nature, that is, nature as it is experienced, encountered, and instrumentalized by diverse publics.  The second selection zooms in on micro nature and explores the world of contemporary genomics. The final section returns to the macro world and discusses the ethics of place in present-day landscape philosophy and environmental ethics.

The contributions to this volume explore perceptual and conceptual boundaries between the human and the natural, or between an ‘out there’ and ‘in here.’ They attempt to specify how nature has been publicly and genomically constructed, known and described through metaphors and re-envisioned in terms of landscape and place. By parsing out and rendering explicit these divergent views, the volume asks for a re-thinking of our relationship with nature.