Who doesn't love the planet?
I painted this the other day. I had fun with it. My dad told me I wasn't afraid of colors like he was. I like bright colors.
This painting came out quickly and mindlessly.
I just did it.
But as I was doing it I was experiencing all kinds of thoughts about nature. Cosmological thought or natural thought is very foreign to me. I think mostly about people, about history, about minds. I don't think a ton about natural process.
Although I do think about it some.
One friend in particular has definitely pushed me to think about the universe, to think cosmologically. But it isn't what I think about of my own accord.
Well. That isn't true. My own reading and thinking is often occupied with questions about the natural world. There is one major difference, perhaps, between the way I approach nature and the way my friend does. I don't approach nature as an object in itself, but as something that humans have thought about. So if I am concerned with nature, I am not concerned if our thoughts about it are accurate, I am concerned with how those thoughts have affected us personally and culturally.
In other words, I'm concerned with how natural thinking infects practical or social thinking.
This is Collingwood's claim. He believes that views of the natural world always have a counterpart in our views of people and ourselves. That if we explain the natural world in terms of teleology, that is, in terms of ends, as the ancient Greeks did, then our practical thinking will most likely be utilitarian, that is, also in terms of ends and means. Or if we explain the natural world by reference to natural 'laws' then our morality, too, will center around adherence to rules or laws. But if we think of the world around us as unique, as expressive of human thought, that is, if we think about the world historically, we will also paint ourselves and others in this light. We will not try to understand people by reference to means/ends analysis or to a rule or law. We will understand that people are unique, acting in the way that they had to act given their unique situation and character.
This is the notion of duty that I am working so hard to explore. I know I'm not making this super clear right now, but the concept of duty, and the concept of history, both need to liberate themselves from natural ways of thinking.
And these are the things I thought about while I painted this.
I thought about how I've been told that the earth is full of layers, each hotter and denser than the rest. That these layers can reach the surface through tunnels, and that they can explode and send crazy stuff everywhere. I have been told that nature is much larger than humans.
Who knows what I was thinking about. But I sure know that it had something to do with history and nature.
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