The harmony of nature and spirit
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The harmony of nature and spirit
（Meaning in life / [by Irving Singer], v. 3）
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996
Available at 2 libraries
Note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Philosophical thinking has traditionally decreed that the human condition is split into two realms of being: nature and the spirit - the one physical and psychological; the other an inherently transcendent dimension that exceeds the natural. The author of this work finds the distinction unacceptable. The final book in Singer's "Meaning of Life Trilogy", argues that separating nature and the life of spirit not only precludes an understanding of how consciousness, awareness of value, and the pursuit of ideal possibilities originate in nature but also masks the discovery of how experience can be meaningful and a source of happiness. Studying the interaction between nature and spirit, the author examines the ways in which we may resolve our sense of being divided and thereby overcome the suffering in life. He speculates about concepts of happiness, play, acceptance of mere existence, and the need to live in unity with nature. The book suggests that the accord between nature and spirit, and between happiness, and love, arises from an art of life that employs the same principles of imagination and idealization as those that exist in all artistic creativity.
Living the good life is an art, Singer writes, and like art in general it seeks the harmonization of meaning with consumatory happiness. It is through the meaning created by imagination and idealization, he says, that happiness and the love of life become available to us. Therein lie the aesthetic bases of ethics and religion.
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