Hail to Thee, My Alma Mater

Dryads, by Boris Vellejo

WUWT, Oregon State: The Ancient Greeks Caused Climate Change by Killing Belief in Dryads

According to an Oregon State Professor of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, if we re-embraced the ancient indigenous worldview of living spiritual life in every tree and rock, we would be less likely to bulldoze the sacred grove.

How ideas from ancient Greek philosophy may have driven civilization toward climate change

October 20, 2021 11.43pm AED

Michael Paul Nelson
Professor of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, Oregon State University
Kathleen Dean Moore
Distinguished Professor Emerita, Oregon State University

As envisioned by Alysha Lowery

Wildfires driven by increasing winds and unprecedented heat surrounded Athens, Greece, this past summer, blanketing its ancient marble monuments and olive groves with ash and acrid smoke. These are the same places where philosophers gathered almost 2,500 years ago to debate questions about the nature of matter and morality.
…
The Atomists’ perilous path

The early Greek philosophers were primarily interested in two kinds of questions. The first kind was metaphysical: What is the world? The second kind was ethical: What is a good person? The two sorts of questions were intertwined, as the physical description of the world shaped humanity’s place in it.

The D&D version

 

If the world is only matter, it has no purpose or intentionality, no divine design or intervention, no spirit or sanctity. It’s just stuff moving around or not, crashing or not. The particles operate according to mechanistic laws, as expressed by the principles of geometry. Consequently, the world has no emergent qualities – soul, mind, consciousness – that cannot be expressed in numbers.

In that view, the world is profane, a word that comes from “profanum,” meaning “outside the temple.” There is nothing special about it, nothing inspiring respect or veneration.

At Deviant Art

An open door to exploitation and waste

Before the Atomists, early Greeks generally did not draw a sharp distinction between the material and the spiritual worlds. In their view, everything – river, mountain, child, tree – is enlivened by a life force.

But the mechanistic, reductionist, matter-in-motion worldview stripped the spirit from the natural world. In doing so, it also stripped the world’s inherent value. The world became unremarkable, reducible, explainable, ownable, for sale. And so, the mechanistic worldview opened the door to exploitation, waste and abuse.

Over time, this worldview became deeply embedded in Western thought. And so human enterprise, following this view, could damage and destroy the matter of the world and offend no god, value or sacred place.

The American Tree Dryad

With a new worldview, or one inspired by ancient Indigenous cultures, we believe it may be possible for Western civilization to free itself from the old materialism and restore life, spirit, purpose, value – and thus, some measure of protection – to the substance of the planet. Consider alternative answers to the two great questions:

Reconsider: What is the world?

…Read more: https://theconversation.com/how-ideas-from-ancient-greek-philosophy-may-have-driven-civilization-toward-climate-change-169714

We had a Dept. of Philosophy?  Whoda thunk? That's what happens when you accept refugees from California.

The Wombat has Rule 5 Sunday: Danielle Rose Russell  up on time at The Other McCain.