This book offers a systematic interpretation of the relation between natural science and metaphysics in Husserl’s phenomenology. It shows that Husserl’s account of scientific knowledge is a radical alternative to established methods and frameworks in contemporary philosophy of science. The author’s interpretation of Husserl’s philosophy offers a critical reconstruction of the historical context from which his phenomenological approach developed, as well as new interpretations of key Husserlian concepts such as metaphysics, idealization, life-world, objectivism, crisis of the sciences, and historicity. The development of Husserl’s philosophical project is marked by the tension between natural science and transcendental phenomenology. While natural science provides a paradigmatic case of the way in which transcendental phenomenology, ontology, empirical science, and metaphysics can be articulated, it has also been the object of philosophical misunderstandings that have determined the current cultural and philosophical crisis. This book demonstrates the ways in which Husserl shows that our conceptions of philosophy and of nature are inseparable. Philosophy’s Nature will appeal to scholars and advanced students who are interested in Husserl and the relations between phenomenology, natural science, and metaphysics.

This volume presents discussions on a wide range of topics focused on eco-phenomenology and the interdisciplinary investigation of contemporary environmental thought. Starting out with a Tymieniecka Memorial chapter, the book continues with papers on the foundations, theories, readings and philosophical sources of eco-phenomenology. In addition, it examines issues of phenomenological anthropology, ecological perspectives of the human relationship to nature, and phenomenology of the living body and the virtual body. Furthermore, the volume engages in a dialogue with contemporary behavioral sciences on topics such as eco-alienation, sustainability, and the human relationship to the earth in the context of the cosmos.

Contemporaryphilosophyseems a great swirling almost chaos. Every situation must seem so at the time, probably because philosophy itself resists structura tion and because personal and political factors within as well as without the discipline must fade in order for the genuinely philosophical merits of performances to be assessed. Nevertheless, some remarks can still be made to situate the present volume. For example, at least half of philosophy on planet Earth is today pursued in North America (which is not to say that this portion is any less internally incoherent than the whole of which it thus becomes the largest part) and the present volume is North American. (Incidentally, the recognition of culturally geographic traditions and tendencies nowise implies that striving for cross-culturalif not trans-cultural philosophical validity has failed or ceased. Rather, it merely recognizes a significant aspect relevant from the historical point of view.) Episte- Aesthetics Ethics Etc. mology Analytic Philosophy Marxism Existentialism Etc. Figure 1. There are two main ways in which philosophical developments are classified. One is in terms of tendencies, movements, and schools of thought and the other is in terms of traditional sub-disciplines. When there is little contention among schools, the predominant way is in terms of sub-disciplines, such as aesthetics, ethics, politics, etc. Today this mode of classification can be seen to intersect with that in terms of movements and tendencies, both of which are represented in the above chart.

Science and philosophy have both undergone radical transformations in recent times. Now they are poised for a pivotal alliance. Science has abandoned the mechanistic model of nature. Philosophy has broken through the tight, traditional circle of conceptualisation, intellectualistic preconceptions and cognitive presuppositions. The two now meet to focus on the palpitating, fluctuating stream of nature/life. Their traditional prejudices dispersed under the pressure of new evidence, philosophy/phenomenology of life and the sciences of life meet in the Archimedean point of the human creative condition (proper to the phenomenology of life) and the role of the human subject (central to the scientific view of reality). They necessitate each other: without the sciences of life, philosophy/phenomenology of life cannot penetrate the intricacies of nature/life; without recourse to philosophy to delineate, design, provide clues to the organisation of natural evidence, the sciences of life cannot devise new strategies for inquiry nor survey their field. The present collection throws open the barriers that separate nature and culture, works of physis and those of the spirit. Following the philosophical model of the ontopoieisis of life, focusing on its specifically human sphere - that of the human self-interpretation-in-existence - it encircles the vast, new horizons of the new alliance.