Overcoming Physicophobia – Forests as the Sacred Source of Our Human Origins

Jackson, Roy ORCID: 0000-0003-3923-9513 (2011) Overcoming Physicophobia – Forests as the Sacred Source of Our Human Origins. In: New Perspectives on People and Forests. Springer, pp. 29-38. ISBN 978-9400711495

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

Many philosophers have written about the forests and their relation to human nature. The great modern philosopher and rationalist Rene Descartes saw the forest as a realm of chaos and disorder and, therefore, alien to the ordered, rational human being. In other words, we have a “psychophobia” attitude to the forest. Yet, he believed, Man can conquer the forest and make it in Man’s image. This in many ways symbolises the Enlightenment Project; imposing mankind’s rational faculties upon the world and making use of it as a resource. Yet other philosophers, of a more Romantic bent, see the forests from a very different perspective. This chapter looks at the views of two such critics of modernity: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Friedrich Nietzsche. While both acknowledged the value of reason as a human capacity, they also saw the importance of emotion and the spirit as part of our human make-up. Rather than “psychophobia”, we should appreciate our affinity to the forest, a “psychophilia”, which acts as an aid in connecting with human beings’ more passionate and spiritual side.

Item Type: Book Section
Uncontrolled Keywords: REF2014 Submission
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BL Religion
H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
Divisions: Schools and Research Institutes > School of Creative Arts
Research Priority Areas: Culture, Continuity, and Transformation
Depositing User: Anne Pengelly
Date Deposited: 14 Sep 2015 13:53
Last Modified: 31 Aug 2023 08:56
URI: https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/2596

University Staff: Request a correction | Repository Editors: Update this record

University Of Gloucestershire

Bookmark and Share

Find Us On Social Media:

Social Media Icons Facebook Twitter Google+ YouTube Pinterest Linkedin

Other University Web Sites

University of Gloucestershire, The Park, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, GL50 2RH. Telephone +44 (0)844 8010001.