Nature in American Philosophy

This book collects essays by leading scholars, both American and European, on the American understanding of nature from Emerson to Dewey and beyond. The volume features essays on Emerson and Thoreau, Royce, Peirce, Wright, James, Holmes, Tocqueville, and Dewey. Topics include the role of nature in American idealism, the influence of Darwin, naturalism in psychology, and human nature in political thought. The final essay presents a comprehensive taxonomy of views of nature in relation to expressions of nature in American art.
With its focus on philosophy of nature, this book fills a gap in the ongoing reassessment of nineteenth-century American philosophy, and it opens the way to further study of the role played by reflection on nature in the emergence of the American mind.