The Philosophy of Living Nature

The Philosophy of Living Nature focuses on the approach of the Western philosophical tradition to physis, or nature. Zdenek Kratochvl reveals, on a philosophical level, the roots of todays environmental crisis, presenting an etymological investigation of the concept of nature itself and arguing for the necessity of focusing on the world and its plurality as the background for phenomena and the context of things, as a unity of horizons, as a paradigm for understanding nature. However, as Kratochvl makes clear, questions about the natural world have stakes far beyond the realm of philosophy: chapters in this wide-ranging and richly nuanced book deal with the identity of living organisms and the relation of life and being. Together, they provide an analysis of Darwinian and neo-Darwinian evolution and question in what sense we may know living beings.