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The Power of a Small Green Place is an ethnographic case study among the volunteers and urban wilds of Ottawa’s Fletcher Wildlife Garden (FWG). Through the conceptual lens of the geographical concept of place – with its wide range of physical, relational and deeper meaningful considerations – this urban wildlife habitat project emerged as a place of profound significance. Volunteers working to create and maintain the FWG’s diverse habitats benefit from opportunities to engage in physical outdoor activity, establish social connections, make contact with the natural world, find deep personal satisfaction and meaning, and experience healthier and mutually beneficial relations with nature. This case study fills a knowledge gap in geography regarding the significant relationships that can emerge between people and the land they work with, thereby contributing to geography’s “latest turn earthward” examining practices and relationships of cultivation with the land. The case study also contributes to a growing interdisciplinary dialogue on human-nature relations and their implications in the context of future environmental and societal uncertainties.

The Power of a Small Green Place is an ethnographic case study among the volunteers and urban wilds of Ottawa’s Fletcher Wildlife Garden (FWG). Through the conceptual lens of the geographical concept of place – with its wide range of physical, relational and deeper meaningful considerations – this urban wildlife habitat project emerged as a place of profound significance. Volunteers working to create and maintain the FWG’s diverse habitats benefit from opportunities to engage in physical outdoor activity, establish social connections, make contact with the natural world, find deep personal satisfaction and meaning, and experience healthier and mutually beneficial relations with nature. This case study fills a knowledge gap in geography regarding the significant relationships that can emerge between people and the land they work with, thereby contributing to geography’s “latest turn earthward” examining practices and relationships of cultivation with the land. The case study also contributes to a growing interdisciplinary dialogue on human-nature relations and their implications in the context of future environmental and societal uncertainties.

Relation of human nature and community A principal theme of this diploma thesis is the community thought of about as an entity managing the law and justice with the respect to human nature followed in the work of three selected authors: Aristotle, David Hume and Friedrich A. Hayek. According to each of them, community is not unnatural but develops through either a natural or spontaneous process. All three are also critics of social contract theories. This work is successively focused on each of the mentioned philosopher, somewhere resulting in comparison. The description of creation and development of society, concept of nature and human nature and government and law function is carefully interpreted. The explanation is subsequently adjusted to the author specific justification through which is the Aristotle's teleology, Hume's moral sense theory and Hayek's emphasis on irrationality and spontaneity being reflected. Despite the divergences, the introduction of these three distinctive approaches provides a relatively uniform and authentic perspective on the relationship between human nature and the community.

In his Treatise of Human Nature, published in 1739, David Hume set out to scientifically comprehend human understanding, action, and personality in terms of the "experimental method of reasoning." He presented a naturalistic portrait of man which represented him as fundamentally determined to avoid pain and embrace pleasure. In this portrait a substantial place is provided for reason, but only as the "servant" of the passions. Only the passions were considered by Hume to be practical; they alone are the effective source of every impulse to act. Reason is merely theoretical; it is solely concerned with the provision of information for the passions. Hume recognized that his account of human nature must face two related problems. First, there is the matter of the common belief that reasoning is a practical activity; a belief not in keeping with Hume's conception of reason as merely theoretical. Second, the fact that persons' actions are influenced by moral ponsiderations implies that they often act in ways not designed to gratify their personal passions. Thus, moral phenomena seem to pose a threat to the hedonistic basis of Hume's theory of human nature. These two problems are related insofar as it is precisely in the case of moral actions that the common notion of practical reason traditionally operates. Hume sought to preserve the essential impracticality of reason in morals with the provision of a complex notion of "sympathy." l£ is the central purpose of this thesis to show that Hume's concept of "sympathy" fails to resolve the problems that it is addressed to. SECTION I: HUME'S THEORY OF ACTION IN THE TREATISE This section provides a sympathetic reading of Hume's account of the role of the passions and reason in the determination of human action. Two difficulties in this account—the concept of a "promptive" function of reason, and the notion of a "calm passion"—are critically considered and found to cohere with the general theory of the faculties in the Treatise. SECTION II: NATURALISM, DETERMINISM, AND VOLITION The naturalism of Hume's account of action has direct reference to the philosophical problems which cluster around the question of the freedom of the will. This section considers the implications of Hume's psychological determinism with a view to understanding more perfectly the detail of his theory of the faculties and action. Close attention is paid here to Hume's view that actions are "artificial," and it is concluded that he allowed a large and influential role for reason without directly threatening the purely theoretical function of the understanding. SECTION III: NATURALISM AND MORALS Hume regarded his theory of morals in the third book of the Treatise as a test and confirmation of his theory of action developed in the first two books. This section explicates Hume's view that moral judgments are affective perceptions rather than conclusions of reason. It is shown that the principle of "sympathy" operates at the center of the process of moral judgment. SECTION IV: SYMPATHY Hume designed the principle of sympathy to explain, in a manner consistent with his general theory of action, how persons can be naturally concerned for the interests of others with whom they have no prior affective connection. The central claim made is that persons are attuned to one another in such a way that there is an easy communication of passion between them. Thus, what is commonly interpreted as a moral "judgment" is really a peculiar feeling precipitated by a sympathy with the passions of others. It is this special feeling which issues from a process of sympathy which Hume identified as moral praise or blame. This final section of the thesis provides an extensive analysis of Hume's concept of "sympathy," and presents an argument aimed at demonstrating the failure of the concept to fulfill its intended role. It is suggested, in conclusion, that Hume fails to show that moral judgments and actions could be possible without the practical involvement of reason. / Arts, Faculty of / Philosophy, Department of / Graduate

<p> This dissertation examines Bernard Lonergan' s understanding of value, its assumptions and its development, for the sake of determining the role of human nature and human historicity in the experience of value. The categories of nature and history reflect a specifically modem form of the long-standing question of the relationship between physis and nomos- i.e., nature and convention, or 'nature and nurture'-for modernity has made us accutely aware of the historicity of cultural conventions. We ask of Lonergan: how or to what extent is the experience of value determined by human nature, and how or to what extent is it historically conditioned?</p> <p> To understand Lonergan' s position one must appreciate both the difference and the continuity between his earlier and later thought. Lonergan' s earlier thought reflects a rather Kantian fonnalistic account of value as the rational good, but his later thought embraces Scheler' s non-fonnal, material account of value-i.e., the good is an object of natural appetite-a position in which affectivity plays a role in revealing value. In spite of this development, there yet remains an underlying unity: there is a fundamental opposition of affect and intellect that precludes the possibility of understanding value as both rationally and materially good. Lonergan associates affect with natural spontaneity, and intellect with the deliberate:, progressive dynamic of history. Because of this, in his earlier work he presents value as rationally, and therefore historically, determined; yet in his ma1ure position value is grasped primarily in affective apprehensions, which are ahistorical intuitions, grounded in human nature and the 'reasons of the heart'.</p> <p> In response, it will be argued that this dichotomy of feeling and rationality can be transcended without sacrificing Lonergan' s account of self-transcendence.</p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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This discussion aims to demonstrate how the project of identifying the nature of humanity is ongoing. The dominant models have their own flaws to contend with, and in the end we are still left uncertain of what constitutes our nature. Of the two views vying for prominence (dualism vs. materialism) neither is indubitable, nevertheless their are faithful proponents on each side. In a debate of belief vs. theory we see these seemingly disparate realms come together in a resignation to faith that their option is an adequate representation of human nature. / Religion

Modern Western Culture (MWC) is based in a materialist and mechanistic ontology that has marginalized spiritual relationality with the natural world. Awe of the Earth once maintained respectful relations between humans and Nature, where shared community existence was a primary concern. Through the rise of the MWC, reverence for the spirit of the Earth has gradually been lost and has altered the way humans situate themselves in the world. Many claim that as the divide between humans and Nature grows, significant barriers to thoughtful and sustainable ways of living have emerged, and reconnecting, or healing this divide is essential in the movement toward environmental sustainability. To address this divide, this research uses the reflective and iterative processes of action research together with feminist post-structural analysis to examine barriers to human-Nature relations at a spiritual level. It explores dominant discourses that act on middle years students and determine what is possible for student-Nature relations in a public school setting. The dominant discourses are embedded in three main themes: role of the city, social acceptance, and technology. Discourses within each theme have been deconstructed, identifying how they are reproduced or disrupted, the implications of adopting the discourses, and how alternatives may be encouraged in school to support spiritual relations with Nature. This research takes a small step toward broadening the possibilities of how people relate with Nature by including spiritual relations with Nature, and begins to erode a clearly identified barrier to achieving sustainability.

Thesis advisor: Rodrigo Chacon / Thesis advisor: Susan Shell / In this thesis, I will explore the natural tension that exists between philosophy and politics; theory and practice, and thought and action, especially as manifest in contemporary society. In order to investigate this tension, I will use a lens presented by Hannah Arendt and her writings, in particular the Human Condition and the Jewish Writings . I will use these works to illustrate Arendt's own conflict between the role of politics and philosophy in human affairs as experienced in her transition from a political journalist to a political theorist. I will argue that a comparison of these works shows Arendt's struggle with the tension between philosophy and politics; thought and action, and theory and practice. A comparison of these works also illustrates Arendt's paradoxical conclusion of the Human Condition: that in times of unprecedented crisis, although theory and philosophy are precisely what are necessary to prevent further destruction and tragedy, they unfortunately become superfluous, and then immediate (even if groundless) action becomes necessarily the only human capacity that can "save" the world. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.