Diogenes articles from August 2005

Diogenes archives from August 2005

A basis for environmental ethics.
August 1, 2005... The Caohu 'ecological migration' The region of Xinjiang ('New Frontier'), China's Far West, contains the majority of the planet's forests of huyang (Populus diversifolia): 360,000 hectares, or more than two-thirds. This tree is a miracle...

Forests as seen by Yanagita Kunio: his contribution to a contemporary ecological idea.(Author Abstract)
August 1, 2005... A forest is only a part of the landscape if seen from the distance. However, it is the important place where people living nearby pick and gather seasonal wild plants or mushrooms. It provides wood that feeds the forestry business. In a forest...

The rehabilitation of indigenous environmental ethics in Africa.
August 1, 2005... Introduction This article examines the rehabilitation of an indigenous environmental ethic and indigenous environmental ethics in Africa. It seeks to provide an understanding of how the many culture-specific African societies view their...

Stone people, tree people and animal people in Turkic Asia and Eastern Europe.
August 1, 2005... In the 17th century the Ottoman traveller Evliya Celebi, who was visiting the Turkmen nomads from the Karakoyunlu tribe in the north-west of Iran, was extremely surprised by one of the key elements of the faith of the people, who were...

Man and cosmos in the renaissance: 'the heavens within us' in a letter by Marsilio Ficino.
August 1, 2005... In an extraordinary page of his Homilies on Leviticus, Origen develops in an unusual way the great theme of the correspondence between man and cosmos. There is no need to seek victims to offer to God from among visible animals: we can all find...

Fengshui, or the search for a very human dragon.
August 1, 2005... Like acupuncture, some signs of the Zodiac and three or four dishes, fengshui is now part of the collection of rare practices and skills that has emerged from China and been reworked in the local style. Everyone, or almost everyone, living in...

City and nature, a missed opportunity?
August 1, 2005... The city presents itself as a construction, an artefact, something that is not only artificial but curbs what is natural. Indeed many cities dominate their sites, whose relief and planting they do not hesitate to alter, diverting the river...

Thinking rocks, living stones: reflections on Chinese Lithophilia.
August 1, 2005... One of the most fascinating features that distinguish Chinese culture from the world's other great traditions is its enduring passion for stone. As in many other places, there is prehistoric evidence in China of religious practices in which...

Extracts from stones.
August 1, 2005... Dedication (January 1966) I speak of stones that have always lain out in the open or sleep in their lair and the dark night of the seam. They hold no interest for the archaeologist, artist or diamond-cutter. No one made palaces, statues,...

The spirit of nature: a conversation with Thierry Zarcone.(Interview)
August 1, 2005... 'Today in my hermitage I have a deep feeling of osmosis with nature... I love my "aquarium of serenity", its permanent connection with the garden surrounding the house.' (1) From 'osmosis with nature' to the 'aquarium of serenity' TZ...

The Genius of Our Lady Nature. Pierre Hadot, Le Voile d'Isis. Essai sur l'histoire de l'idee de Nature.(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... The Genius of Our Lady Nature. Pierre Hadot, Le Voile d'Isis. Essai sur l'histoire de l'idee de Nature. Paris: Gallimard, 2004. We cannot mention 'veil' without thinking of nakedness. In the same way nature and especially 'the natural'...

The myth of the mandrake, the 'plant-human'.(Comment)
August 1, 2005... There is no plant that embodies the encounter between humans and plants better than the mandrake, whose myth, as Arlette Bouloumie writes, 'has the cosmic sense of a profound correlation between nature and humanity and the possibility of their...

From its birthplace in Egypt to Marseilles, an ancient trade: 'drugs and spices'.(Comment)
August 1, 2005... The plant trade Among ancient trades no other could claim to know such a large number of natural products as the 'drugs and spices' business. It can be stated that today no one works at it any longer--at least in its traditional form. I am...

'Nature' in the epic The Mahabharata.(Comment)(Author Abstract)
August 1, 2005... The Sanskrit for 'nature' is prakrti, which means 'production, completion'; the word comes from a root pra-KR-, meaning 'produce, carry out' but also 'marry, name'. These values seem to cover quite well the way Indians used to perceive nature...