Complexity (Philosophy)

The topics of identity and subjectivity are well-trodden paths in posthuman
thought, and the trend has been to reduce the self to its material, social, and technoscientific components. Yet the posthuman model of subjectivity—influenced by the tenets of postmodernism—tends to be disabling because it does not focus on the subject’s agency or the possibility of liberation from social tyranny. In this thesis, I use a sampling of what I call “religious wisdom literature”—specifically, the wisdom books of the Old Testament and contemporary Buddhist writings—to challenge the assumption that the self is indistinguishable from the ideologies that produce it. I provide models from religious texts that instead, emphasize critical agency, flexibility, and resistive power. I also suggest that focusing on these qualities may ultimately be useful in the composition classroom, where we can use “self-centered” expressivist techniques (reflective assignments, emotional awareness) to meet the social-epistemic goal of ideological critique. Ultimately, posthumanism, with its emphasis on the construction of subjectivity, is better suited to question strict materialism and inquire into the inspiring possibilities of ancient wisdom.

Contemporary views on the aesthetics of nature fall into two opposing schools of thought; the cognitive school where philosophers such as Allen Carlson believe that science can explain everything about the aesthetics of nature, and the non-cognitive where, for example, Arnold Berleant maintains that science is a sufficient though not a necessary condition for the aesthetic appreciation of nature. Berleant and others of his kind contend that an engaged multi-sensuous relationship with nature will manifest the required experience. Empathy with nature, specifically primal empathy is the focus of this research, but empathy can only be experienced from a phenomenological perspective. I have walked over two hundred miles in over 70 Florida state parks, including an autumn trip to Vermont and back. During this journey I came to experience a personal connection (empathy) with nature that I now believe is grounded in holism and a methodology of the sublime leading to the beautiful. The main conclusions derived from this research are: self-realized individuals will experience the connection I speak of more quickly than those who are not, and the genius nature artist through a creative act grounded in primal empathy can reveal the Ideas or Forms of nature to those who would otherwise never experience them. This research also concludes that empathy with nature, specifically primal empathy, is a new element that can reduce the cleft and help unify the two opposing views.