Elemental Philosophy: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water as Environmental Ideas (Suny Series in Environmental Philosophy and Ethics)

Explores the ancient and perennial notion of the four elements as environmental ideas. Bachelard called them "the hormones of the imagination." Hegel observed that, "through the four elements we have the elevation of sensuous ideas into thought." Earth, air, fire, and water are explored as both philosophical ideas and environmental issues associated with their classical and perennial conceptions. David Macauley embarks upon a wide-ranging discussion of their initial appearance in ancient Greek thought as mythic forces or scientific principles to their recent reemergence within contemporary continental philosophy as a means for understanding landscape and language, poetry and place, the body and the body politic. In so doing, he shows the importance of elemental thinking for comprehending and responding to ecological problems. In tracing changing views of the four elements through the history of ideas, Macauley generates a new vocabulary for and a fresh vision of the environment while engaging the elemental world directly with reflections on their various manifestations. Frontmatter Preface (page xi) Acknowledgments (page xv) Introduction (page 1) Part I: Elemental Encounters and Ideas (page 11) Chapter 1. Philosophy's Forgotten Four (page 13) Interstice: Stone (page 51) Chapter 2. The Topology of the Elemental Environment (page 59) Interstice: Wood (page 93) Part II: Elemental Theories (page 101) Chapter 3. The Flowering of Ecological Roots: Empedocles' Elemental Thought (page 103) Interstice: Ice and Snow (page 137) Chapter 4. Plato's Chora-graphy of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water (page 143) Interstice: Cloud (page 173) Chapter 5. The Place of the Elements and the Elements of Place: Aristotle's Natural Household (page 179) Interstice: Heat and Cold (page 201) Chapter 6. The Economy and Ecology of the Aristotelian Elements (page 209) Interstice: Light and Shadow (page 243) Part III: Elemental Worlds (page 253) Chapter 7. Domestication of the Elements (page 255) Interstice: Night (page 283) Chapter 8. In Touch With the Sensuous World: The Reclamation of the Elemental in Continental Philosophy (page 293) Interstice: Space (page 327) Chapter 9. Revaluing Earth, Air, Fire, and Water: Elemental Beauty, Ecological Duty, and Environmental Policy (page 333) Notes (page 357) Index (page 419) "Bachelard called them "the hormones of the imagination." Hegel observed that, "through the four elements we have the elevation of sensuous ideas into thought." Earth, air, fire, and water are explored as both philosophical ideas and environmental issues associated with their classical and perennial conceptions. David Macauley embarks upon a wide-ranging discussion of their initial appearance in ancient Greek thought as mythic forces or scientific principles to their recent reemergence within contemporary continental philosophy as a means for understanding landscape and language, poetry and place, the body and the body politic. In so doing, he shows the importance of elemental thinking for comprehending and responding to ecological problems. In tracing changing views of the four elements through the history of ideas, Macauley generates a new vocabulary for and a fresh vision of the environment while engaging the elemental world directly with reflections on their various manifestations."--Page 4 de la couverture "Bachelard called them "the hormones of the imagination." Hegel observed that, "through the four elements we have the elevation of sensuous ideas into thought." Earth, air, fire, and water are explored as both philosophical ideas and environmental issues associated with their classical and perennial conceptions. David Macauley embarks upon a wide-ranging discussion of their initial appearance in ancient Greek thought as mythic forces or scientific principles to their recent reemergence within contemporary continental philosophy as a means for understanding landscape and language, poetry and place, the body and the body politic. In so doing, he shows the importance of elemental thinking for comprehending and responding to ecological problems. In tracing changing views of the four elements through the history of ideas, Macauley generates a new vocabulary for and a fresh vision of the environment while engaging the elemental world directly with reflections on their various manifestations."--BOOK JACKET.