The Return of Nature
On the Beyond of Sense

John Sallis (Author)

9780253022899

Hardback, published 30 September 2016

200 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.345 kg

"The Return of Nature is an inspiring read which engages its readers from the very beginning. It can be read by anyone looking to open up their mind to the reflection on other ways to live more closely in tune with their own nature and to the nature that is around them."—Phenomenological Reviews

John Sallis dismantles the traditional conception of nature in this book of imagination and the cosmos. In the thought of Emerson, Hegel, and Schelling, Sallis discerns the seeds of an understanding of nature that goes against the modern technological assault on natural things and opens a space for a revitalized approach to the world. He identifies two fundamental reorientations that philosophical thought is called on to address today: the turn to the elemental in nature and the turn from nature to the cosmos at large. He traces the elusive course of the imagination, as if coming from nowhere, and describes the way in which it bears on the relation of humans to nature. Sallis's account demonstrates that a renewal of our understanding of nature is one of the prime imperatives we demand from philosophy today.

Prologue
1. The Return of Nature
2. The Birth of Nature
3. Return to Nature
4. Return from the Nature beyond Nature
5. The Elemental Turn
6. The Cosmological Turn
7. Coming as if from Nowhere
8. The Plurality of Nature and the Disintegration of Difference