Orders of Nature

Lawrence Cahoone is Professor of Philosophy at the College of the Holy Cross. His many books include Cultural Revolutions: Reason versus Culture in Philosophy, Politics, and Jihad and From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology.

• AcknowledgmentsIntroductionPart I. A Kind of Naturalism 1. From Pluralism to Naturalism2. A Selective History of Naturalism3. Reduction, Emergence, and Physicalism4. Concepts for Pluralistic NaturePart II. The Orders of Nature 5. The Physical Order6. The Achievements of Matter7. The Phenomena of Life8. Mind and the Hard Problems9. Meanings of the Cultural Mind10. The Evolution of KnowledgePart III. Naturalistic Speculations 11. A Ground of Nature12. Natural ReligionNotesBibliographyIndex

"Every once in a while a book appears that presents in systematic form the current state of human knowledge. The Orders of Nature is such a book. While it includes concise summaries of prominent theories in the natural sciences and to a lesser extent in the social sciences and humanities, it is much more than a general compendium of thought today. Its presentations are organized and interpreted according to the perspective of a naturalistic metaphysics. The result is an unusually impressive achievement worthy of wide dissemination and discussion." — American Journal of Theology and Philosophy"In a book of impressive scope and clarity, Cahoone presents a strong case for a pluralist, naturalist metaphysics that aims to systematically account for the physical, material, biological, mental, and sociocultural levels of nature … This is a rare, valuable book synthesizing the latest results of study of the natural and human sciences through the tradition of emergentist metaphysics. It is a great example of the sort of transdisciplinary inquiry encouraged in the liberal arts tradition … Highly recommended." — CHOICE