The Idea of Nature and its Essence

The Idea of Nature and its Essence The idea of nature is one of the most widely employed in philosophy and by the same token one of the most ill-defined. Authors such as Aristotle and Descartes relied on the concept of nature to explain the fundamental tenets of their views, without ever attempting to define the concept. Even in contemporary philosophy, the idea is oftentimes employed, in different forms. So, what is nature? Nature and the Essence of a Thing The philosophical tradition that traces back to Aristotle employs the idea of nature to explain that which defines the essence of a thing. One of the most fundamental metaphysical concepts, the essence indicates those properties that define what a thing is. The essence of water, for instance, will be its molecular structure, the essence of a species, its ancestral history; the essence of a human, its self-consciousness or its soul. Within the Aristotelian traditions, hence, to act in accordance with nature means to take into account the real definition of each thing when dealing with it. The Natural World At times the idea of nature is instead used to refer to anything that exists in the universe as part of the physical world. In this sense, the idea embraces anything that falls under the study of the natural sciences, from physics to biology to environmental studies. Natural vs. Artificial Natural is often used also to refer to a process which occurs spontaneously as opposed to one that occurs as the result of the deliberation of a being. Thus, a plant grows naturally when its growth was not planned by a rational agent; it grows otherwise artificially. An apple would hence be an artificial product, under this understanding of the idea of nature, although most would agree that an apple is a product of nature (that is, a part of the natural world, that which is studied by natural scientists). Nature vs. Nurture Related to the spontaneity vs. artificiality divide is the idea of nature as opposed to nurture. The idea of culture becomes here central to draw the line. That which is natural as opposed to that which is the outcome of a cultural process. Education is a central example of a non-natural process: under many accounts, education is seen as a process against nature. Clearly enough, from this perspective there are some items that cannot ever be purely natural: any human development is shaped by the activity, or lack thereof, of interaction with other human beings; there is no such thing as a natural development of human language, for instance. Nature as Wilderness The idea of nature is at times used to express the wilderness. Wilderness lives at the edge of civilization, of any cultural processes. In the strictest reading of the term, humans can encounter wilderness in very few selected places on earth nowadays, those were the influence of human societies is negligible; if you include the environmental impact produced by humans on the whole ecosystem, there may well be no wild place left on our planet. If the idea of wilderness is loosened a bit, then even through a walk in a forest or a trip on the ocean one may experience that which is wild, i.e. natural. Nature and God Finally, an entry on nature cannot omit that which perhaps has been the most widely employed understanding of the term in past millennia: nature as the expression of the divine. The idea of nature is central in most religions. It has taken numerous forms, from specific entities or processes (a mountain, the sun, the ocean, or fire) to embracing the whole realm of existents. Further Online Readings The entry on Laws of Nature at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.The entry on Aristotle’s Natural Philosophy at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Myths About Obama - The 5 Wackiest Myths About Obama

Myths About Obama - The 5 Wackiest Myths About Obama If you believe everything you read in your email inbox, Barack Obama is a Muslim born in Kenya who is ineligible to serve as U.S. president and he even charters private jets at taxpayer expense so the family dog Bo can go on vacation in luxury. And then there is the truth. No other modern president, it seems, has been the subject of so many outrageous and malicious fabrications. The myths about Obama live on through the years, mostly in chain emails forwarded endlessly across the Internet, despite being debunked over and over again. Here is a look at five of the silliest myths about Obama: 1. Obama is Muslim. False. He is a Christian. Obama was baptized at Chicagos Trinity United Church of Christ in 1988. And he has spoken and written often about his faith in Christ. Rich, poor, sinner, saved, you needed to embrace Christ precisely because you had sins to wash away - because you were human, he wrote in his memoir, The Audacity of Hope. ... Kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side of Chicago, I felt Gods spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth, Obama wrote. And yet nearly one in five Americans - 18 percent - believe Obama is a Muslim, according to an August 2010 survey conducted by The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. The are wrong. 2. Obama Nixes National Day of Prayer Numerous widely circulated emails claim President Barack Obama refused to recognize the National Day of Prayer after taking office in January of 2009. Oh Our wonderful president is at it again .... he has cancelled the national day of prayer that is held at the white house every year .... sure glad I wasnt fooled into voting for him! one email begins. Thats false. Obama issued proclamations setting the National Day of Prayer in both 2009 and 2010. We are blessed to live in a Nation that counts freedom of conscience and free exercise of religion among its most fundamental principles, thereby ensuring that all people of goodwill may hold and practice their beliefs according to the dictates of their consciences, Obamas April 2010 proclamation read. Prayer has been a sustaining way for many Americans of diverse faiths to express their most cherished beliefs, and thus we have long deemed it fitting and proper to publicly recognize the importance of prayer on this day across the Nation. 3. Obama Uses Taxpayer Money to Fund Abortions Critics claim that the health care reform law of 2010, or Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, includes provisions that make up the broadest expansion of legalized abortion since Roe v. Wade. The Obama Administration will give Pennsylvania $160 million in federal tax funds, which weve discovered will pay for insurance plans that cover any legal abortion, Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, said in a widely circulated statement in July 2010. Wrong again. The Pennsylvania Insurance Department, responding to claims that federal money would fund abortions, issued a stern rebuttal to anti-abortion groups.Pennsylvania will - and has always intended to - comply with the federal ban on abortion funding in the coverage provided through our federally funded high risk pool, the Insurance Department said in a statement. In fact, Obama signed an executive order banning the use of federal money to pay for abortion in the health care reform law on March 24, 2010. If the state and federal governments stick to their words, it does not appear taxpayer money will pay any part of abortions in Pennsylvania or any other state. 4. Obama Was Born in Kenya Numerous conspiracy theories claim that Obama was born in Kenya and not Hawaii, and that because he was not born here he was not eligible to serve as president.The silly rumors grew so loud, however, that Obama released a copy of his certificate of live birth during the presidential campaign in 2007. Smears claiming Barack Obama doesnt have a birth certificate arent actually about that piece of paper - theyre about manipulating people into thinking Barack is not an American citizen, the campaign said. The truth is, Barack Obama was born in the state of Hawaii in 1961, a native citizen of the United States of America. The documents prove he was born in Hawaii. Though some believe the records are phony. 5. Obama Charters Plane for the Family Dog Uh, no. PolitiFact.com, a service of the St. Petersburg Times in Florida, managed to track down the source of this ridiculous myth to a vaguely worded newspaper article in Maine about the first familys vacation in the summer of 2010. The article, about the Obamas visiting Acadia National Park, reported: Arriving in a small jet before the Obamas was the first dog, Bo, a Portuguese water dog given as a present by the late U.S. Sen Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and the presidents personal aide Reggie Love, who chatted with Baldacci. Some folks, eager to jump on the president, mistakenly believed that meant the dog got its own personal jet. Yeah, really. As the rest of us toil on the unemployment line, as millions of Americans find their retirement accounts dwindling, their hours at work cut, and their pay scale trimmed, King Barack and Queen Michelle are flying their little doggie, Bo, on his own special jet airplane for his own little vacation adventure, one blogger wrote. The truth? The Obamas and their staffer traveled in two small planes because the runway where they landed was too short to accommodate Air Force One. So one plane carried the family. The other carried the Bo the dog - and lots of other people. The dog did not have its own private jet.