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1 ¹ I am following W.D. Ross’s text Aristotle’s Prior and Posterior Analytics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1949). My translation is of: 89b 23−25: Τὰ ζητούμευά ἐστιν ἴσα τὸν ἀριθμὸν ὅσαπερ ἐπιστάμεθα. ζητοῦμεν δὲ τέττρα, τὸ ὅτι, τὸ διότι, εἰ ἔστ, τί ἐστιν.

2 ² See particularly my books that explore Aristotle: Method and Practice in Aristotle’s Biology (Lanham, MD and London: UPA/Rowman and Littlefield, 1983) and The Origins of Ancient Greek Science: Blood—A Philosophical Study (New York and London: Routledge, 2015): chapter 3, and “Mechanism and Teleology in Aristotle’s Biology” Apeiron 15.2 (1981): 96−102; “The Place of Nature in Aristotle’s Biology” Apeiron 19.1 (1985): 126−139.

3 ³ The Oxford English Dictionary cites four principal categories for the noun form in English and many others in verbal and adjectival forms. For a brief summary of the noun forms see below:I. Senses relating to physical or bodily power, strength, or substance: e.g., Semen. Occasionally also: the sexual fluid of a woman. Now rare; and the vital functions of the human body as requiring sustenance, esp. nourishment. Frequently in to support (also suffice, sustain) nature. Now rare. II. Senses relating to mental or physical impulses and requirements, e.g., The vital functions of the human body as requiring sustenance, esp. nourishment. Frequently in to support (also suffice, sustain) nature. Now rare. III. Senses relating to innate character, e.g., The inherent or essential quality or constitution of a thing; the inherent and inseparable combination of properties giving any object, event, quality, emotion, etc., its fundamental character. In later use also more generally: kind, type. IV. Senses relating to the material world, e.g., (a) The creative and regulative power which is conceived of as operating in the material world and as the immediate cause of its phenomena. (b) The phenomena of the physical world collectively; esp. plants, animals, and other features and products of the earth itself, as opposed to humans and human creations. (c) In a wider sense: the whole natural world, including human beings; the cosmos. Obsolete. (d) (Contrasted with art.) In a person’s speech, writing, drawing, etc.: fidelity or close adherence to nature; naturalness; (apparent) lack of artifice. Obsolete. (e) in nature: (of goods or products) in a natural condition; un-manufactured. Obsolete. Rare. In various way, this chapter touches on all of these even though many of the texts considered are not written in English. Please also note that these four senses of nature are not to be confused with the three senses of nature that I put forth.

4 ⁴ I’m thinking here of those who consider the environment as being a constant medium in which humans or some specific agent (human) seeks to commit purposive action within his own rational life plan. These agents view nature rather like a swimming pool in which they partake for their own pleasure when they want to for their self-oriented purposes. I believe that these sorts of agents are on the front lines of being deniers of environmental change. For a brief discussion of this see: George Marshall, Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains are Wired to Ignore Climate Change (London: Bloomsbury, 2015) and Haydn Washington and John Cook, Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand (New York and London: Routledge, 2011).

5 ⁵ Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, revised edition 1976) sets out one model in which humans set themselves as above the natures of plants and animals to a place mid-way between these primitive entities on earth and angles. Such an ontology is, necessarily, dualistic with humans as the mid-point.

6 ⁶ Aristotle sets these three powers out in Peri psuche (De anima): Plants—414 31; Animals—414b1−415a13; Humans—III.3−5. For a brief overview on this see my article in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://www.iep.utm.edu/aris-bio.

7 ⁷ For more context on this see: Boylan (1981), (1983), (1985), (2015).

8 ⁸ Michael Boylan, Natural Human Rights: A Theory (New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014): chapters 2 and 3.

9 ⁹ I have identified this sense of nature of one of three principal forms in the ancient world in my book The Origins of Ancient Greek Science: Blood—A Philosophical Study (New York and London: Routledge, 2015). I have continued with this characterization in subsequent lectures and essays. The other two forms are nature as materially understood under a realistic epistemology and nature understood materially under an anti-realistic epistemology.

10 ¹⁰ The literature on this is huge. Some brief suggestions include: Lawrence James, The Rise and Fall of the British Empire (New York: St. Martins, 1997); Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1999); Gareth Knapman, Race and British Colonialism in South East Asia: 1770−1870 (New York and London: Routledge, 2018); Shashi Tharoor, Inglorius Empire: What the British did to India (Royal Oak, MI: Scribe Publishers, 2018); James Lehning, European Colonialism Since 1700 (New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); and Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (New York: Penguin Books, 1994). What is common to these and many other studies is that the age of conquest and massive land theft required a sensibility of superiority over the vanquished. This separation and consequent belief in superiority is analogous to the separation that many feel from Nature.

11 ¹¹ Frank Lloyd Wright, An Organic Architecture, ed. Andrew Saint (London: Lund Humphries, 2017, rpt. 1939).

12 ¹² For an historical survey of such transitions see: Jennifer Birch, ed. From Pre-Historic Villages to Cities (New York and London: Routledge, 2014). To Native Americans this European attitude of natural dominion was seen as being against Nature as it was: “To the Indians it seemed that these Europeans hated everything in nature—the living forests and their birds and beasts, the grassy glades, the water, the soil, and the air itself” from Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (New York: Picador, 1970): 7.

13 ¹³ Michael Boylan, A Just Society (New York and Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004): 115−116.

14 ¹⁴ This constraint is the personal worldview imperative: “All people must develop a single comprehensive and internally coherent worldview that is good and that we strive to act out in our daily lives.” Michael Boylan, Natural Human Rights: A Theory (New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014): 166.

15 ¹⁵ For a discussion of this distinction see: Michael Boylan, Basic Ethics, 2nd edn. (Upper Saddle River, N.J. Pearson, 2009): 30−32.

16 ¹⁶ An advocate of this position is Hilary Putnam, Ethics Without Ontology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004).

17 ¹⁷ The move to ethical anti-realism is no small matter. Ethical anti-realists believe there are no certain facts about ethics in the world. This means that norms are created by force: kraterism (might makes right). For my argument on this see: Boylan (2014): 196−202.

18 ¹⁸ “All people must develop a single comprehensive and internally coherent worldview that is good and that we strive to act out in our daily lives,” Boylan (2014): chapter 6 .

19 ¹⁹ It is important to distinguish a non-ethical (non-moral) practice from an unethical (immoral) practice. The former does not concern ethics while the latter is judged to be wrong by some theory of ethics.

20 ²⁰ I define a micro community as one in which a participant can, in principle, know all the members of that community. Governance in the micro community is via a committee of the whole. A macro community is rather larger and its governance is via elected representatives. See: Boylan (2004): 113−115.

21 ²¹ Of course, if one is in the position to influence the macro community via the media or public lectures, this would be helpful, too. However, this is a position only open to a few. To impose this duty generally upon all would be utopian.

22 ²² “Kraterism” I hold to be the philosophy that “might makes right.” Most philosophers disavow this approach. For a famous discussion on this topic, see Plato’s Republic, Book One, 338c−354a.

23 ²³ Of course, the existence of other species poses other problems. For an example of this sort of analysis see Thomas White, In Defense of Dolphins (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008).

24 ²⁴ Boylan, 2014: 176−177.

25 ²⁵ According to the Washington Post around 47% of the world’s population has access to the Internet. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/11/22/47-percent-of-the-worlds-population-now-use-the-internet-users-study-says/?utm_term=.1de178a04090 Accessed 2 June 2019.

26 ²⁶ For an exposition of this argument see: Michael Boylan, “Worldview and the Value-Duty Link in Environmental Ethics” in Michael Boylan, ed. Environmental Ethics, 3rd edn. (Malden, MA and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014): 95−104.

27 ²⁷ One example of this is the false information about childhood vaccinations. For a discussion of this see: http://www.immunize.org/reports/report038.pdf Accessed 7 June 2019.

28 ²⁸ See Julie Kirsch’s take on this: “When Is Ignorance Morally Objectionable?” in The Morality and Global Justice Reader, ed. Michael Boylan (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2011): 51−64.

29 ²⁹ This is widely cited but without a clear single reference, see: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/our-own-facts_b_542796, viewed 6 June 2019.

30 ³⁰ Some may say that I am naïve on this aspect of the education requirement. The regular eco-community worldview imperative can be satisfied by one’s daily life and interaction with the local eco-system and the larger biome. But this extended eco-community worldview imperative requires more. If, as previously established, roughly half the world has access to the Internet, then there is opportunity. But if one is working 12−14 hours a day just to survive, this may not be a functional reality. Here Kant’s “ought implies can” caveat can fit in with otherwise sincere individuals seeking truth. Sadly, this group is often exploited by demigods who have their own personally enriching scenarios to set forth in the place of dispassionate science.

31 ³¹ Michael Boylan, “Worldview and the Value-Duty Link to Environmental Ethics” in Environmental Ethics, 2nd edn. Ed. Michael Boylan (Malden, MA and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014): 95−108.

32 ³² The type-token distinction is variously represented. My use of the distinction owes its source to Paul Grice, “Utterer’s Meaning and Intentions” (1969) 78 Philosophical Review 147−177 and Willard Van Quine, Quiddities: An Intermittently Philosophical Dictionary. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987).

33 ³³ Boylan (2014).

34 ³⁴ For the fine points of this see the argument for “The Moral Status of Basic Goods” in Boylan (2014): 182.

35 ³⁵ The relationship between “tool-making” and the evolution of rationality is a controversial subject. For a general discussion of some of the key points to this discussion see: Alex H. Taylor and Russell D. Gray, “Is There a Link Between the Crafting of Tools and the Evolution of Cognition” WIREs Cogn Sci 2014, 5: 693−703. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1322.

36 ³⁶ For a more complete depiction of this in the context of Ancient Greek Science see Boylan (2015).

37 ³⁷ Of course, there are some who think that all interference in nature is improper. These are people who assert that Nature was created by God and since God is perfect, God’s makings are perfect, too. Any interference will inevitability lead to a diminished outcome. This point of view was set out in the seventeenth century (a time of great scientific questioning and innovation in Europe): “Heaven if for thee too high/to know what passes there; be lowly wise: /Think only what concerns thee and thy being” from John Milton, “Paradise Lost” in John Milton, The Poetical Works of John Milton, vol. 1, ed. Helen Darbishire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1952): Bk. 8, ll. 172−174.

38 ³⁸ For two different perspectives on this issue see: Beril Idemen Sözman, “Harm in the Wild: Facing Non-Human Suffering in Nature” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice: An International Forum 16 (5) 2013: 1075−1088 and Martn Drenthen, “New Wilderness Landscapes as Moral Criticisms: A Nietzschen Perspective on Our Contemporary Fascination with Wilderness” Ethical Perspectives: Journal of the European Ethics Network 14 (4) (2007): 371−403.

39 ³⁹ Two studies show the quandary that pollution caused in nineteenth century Britain: Stephen Mosley, The Chimney of the World: A History of Smoke Pollution in Victorian and Edwardian Manchester (London and New York: Routledge, 2008) and Peter Thorsheim, Inventing Pollution: Coal, Smoke, and Culture in Britain since 1800 (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2006).

40 ⁴⁰ The human “makings” over and against Nature without this human interference is obviously a controversial topic in nineteenth century Britain, cf. Thomas Hardy’s novel, A Laodicean, in which the daughter of a man who made a fortune as an engineer in the new rail service to the West Country (an act which is seen as unnatural) follows onto the daughter, who herself is unnatural from this background. For a broader historical treatment see the classic: Eric Hobsbawm, Industry and Empire: The Birth of the Industrial Revolution (New York: The New Press, rpt. 1999).

41 ⁴¹ I distinguish between two sorts of human communities based upon size: Boylan (2004) chapter 6.

42 ⁴² In the Torah, Genesis 2−3 there is a forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden: it is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam and Eve are told to forbear eating of this fruit. Since John Milton in Paradise Lost, this prohibition was extended to technology that might verge Nature (para phusin): the “new science” of the seventeenth century, op. cit. n. 37.

43 ⁴³ A very safe ploy against censorship since Eve was the “fallen woman” who doomed humankind. You could put almost anything in her mouth. This is Milton playing it cautious.

44 ⁴⁴ There were a number of individuals in the nineteenth century Britain advocating some form of evolutionary theory. For examples of these see: W.J. Dempster, Evolutionary Concepts in the Nineteenth Century: Natural Selection and Patrick Matthew (Bel Air, CA: The Pentland Press, 1995); and Evolution and its Influence, ed. by the staff of Humanities in the Modern World (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1954). In the context of controlling Nature as a cultural event in this era see: Martin Fichman, Controlling Nature: Evolutionary Theory and Victorian Culture (Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2002).

45 ⁴⁵ This distinction in the Western tradition goes at least as far back as the differing views of Parmenides (the static view) and Heraclitus (the constant change position).

46 ⁴⁶ How biological evolutionary theory ought to be applied to human social society has been a long going experiment still in progress. From Herbert Spencer, The Synthetic Philosophy (London: Williams and Norgate, 1915, 5th impression) to socio-biology, e.g., Arthur F.G. Bourke, Principles of Social Evolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011) it has been controversial just how principles of biological evolution might be properly applied to the structure of human society.

47 ⁴⁷ Note that “better” and “worse” are not a part of biological evolutionary theory. Rather, it is an unproven assumption based upon the connotation of the word “evolution” as applied more broadly to human society, cf. n. 46.

48 ⁴⁸ Hesiod discusses devolution as five ages of man: Golden, Silver, Bronze, Heroic, and Iron Ages in Works and Days—Hesiod, Theogony and Works and Days, ed. Glenn W. Most (London and Cambridge, MA: Loeb Classical Library, 2006): ll. 109−201; cf. Ovid, Metamorphosis, ed. G.P. Gould, et al. (London and Cambridge MA: Loeb Classical Library, 1984): Bk. I, ll. 89−150.

49 ⁴⁹ An example of this in the United State is the politician Donald Trump whose mantra was “to make America great again.” This is an example of devolutionary thinking.

50 ⁵⁰ It is essential to add a positive outcome to the mechanism otherwise one might be inclined to view positively intricate systems that cause death and destruction. In this account “animal and plant life” is asserted to be a per se good so long as the sustainability proviso is added. Any predatory element that kills more than it enriches will be viewed negatively in this regard. This could include a judgment against humans.

51 ⁵¹ This argument should be seen in the context of my argument “The Moral Status of Basic Goods” in Natural Human Rights: A Theory (New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014): 182.

52 ⁵² For examples of what I mean by these three forms of logic see my The Process of Argument: An Introduction, 3rd edn. (New York and London: Routledge, forthcoming 2020).

53 ⁵³ The Table of Embeddedness (See Boylan, 2014; 186).

54 ⁵⁴ As an assertion this premise must be accepted on cognitive intuitionism. It can be made plausible via fictive narrative philosophy using my version of abduction—See my Fictive Narrative Philosophy: How Fiction Can Act as Philosophy (New York and London: Routledge, 2019): chapter 5.

55 ⁵⁵ I am using “projection” here in the sense of Nelson Goodman, Fact, Fiction, and Forecast, 4th edn. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983). It is my contention here that the feature of projection for an overhypothesis are met: empirically supported, unviolated, and unexhausted.

56 ⁵⁶ cf. The depiction set out in Boylan 2014, chapter 6.

57 ⁵⁷ I put these two relations as the parts of metaphysics as I characterize them: ontology (the things that are) and cosmology (the priority relation between the things that are)—see Michael Boylan, The Good, The True, and the Beautiful (London: Bloomsbury, 2009): chapter 5.

58 ⁵⁸ See: Gottfried Wilhelm Freiheer von Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics, ed. Albert R. Chandler, trans. George Montgomery (Lasalle, IL: Open Court, 1924, rpt. 1902).

59 ⁵⁹ Please note that “making” (in the sense intended above) is under the control of the “maker.” Some apparent “makings” really owe their efficacy to some other system, e.g., biological reproduction does not constitute a “making” in this sense. If male A and female B sexually interact so that child C results, there is a sense of A and B being a contributing part of the causal process in C’s coming-to-be, but most of the work involves n/Natural processes that are common to all males and females of that species and others, as per phylogenetic relations affected by systematic, evolutionary proximity.

60 ⁶⁰ One exposition of the principle of precautionary reason I accept is by Deryck Beyleveld and Shaun D. Pattinson, “Defending Moral Precaution as a Solution to the Problem of Other Minds: A Reply to Holm and Coggon,” Ratio Juris 23 (2) (2010): 258−-273.

61 ⁶¹ For a more thorough treatment of this author’s views on this topic see: Michael Boylan and Kevin Brown, Genetic Engineering: Ethics and Science on the New Frontier (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2002).

Basic Goods

Level One: Most Deeply Embedded 1 (That which is absolutely necessary for Human Action): Food, Water, Sanitation, Clothing, Shelter, Protection from Unwarranted bodily harm (including basic health care)Level Two: Deeply Embedded (That which is necessary for effective basic action within any given society)

 Literacy in the language of the country

 Basic mathematical skills

 Other fundamental skills necessary to be an effective agent in that country, e.g., in the United States some computer literacy is necessary

 Some familiarity with the culture and history of the country in which one lives

 The assurance that those you interact with are not lying to promote their own interests

 The assurance that those you interact with will recognize your human dignity (as per above) and not exploit you as a means only

 Basic human rights such as those listed in the U.S. Bill of Rights and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Secondary Goods

Level One: Life Enhancing, Medium to High-Medium on Embeddedness

 Basic societal respect

 Equal opportunity to compete for the prudential goods of society

 Ability to pursue a life plan according to the Personal Worldview Imperative

 Ability to participate equally as an agent in the Shared Community Worldview Imperative

Level Two: Useful, Medium to Low Medium Embeddedness

 Ability to utilize one’s real and portable property in the manner she chooses

 Ability to gain from and exploit the consequences of one’s labor regardless of starting point

 Ability to pursue goods that are generally owned by most citizens, e.g., in the United States today a telephone, television, and automoble would fit into this class

Level Three: Luxurious, Low Embeddedness

 Ability to pursue goods that are pleasant even though they are far removed from action and from the expectations of most citizens within a given country, e.g., in the United States today a European vacation would fit into this class

Ability to exert one’s will so that she might extract a disproportionate share of society’s resources for her own use.