Blog #2

Reflecting back on the course, I am drawn to the first chapter in Carlson's book in which he talks about the appreciation of nature through the ages and how it comes to what we see today. I find myself puzzled by the fact that there are many models for appreciating nature that are determined by constraints of model knowledge and wonder if these philosophers think that the people of the past had no appreciation of nature since they didn't have the aspects of art like we do today (through the expression of tone, color, composition, etc) or the scientific knowledge of today (through physiology, immunology, physics, etc). Are we to conclude that with thorough knowledge of these modern terms and concepts? I say no. If we accepted that conclusion, we would also have to accept that children or uneducated or even well-educated yet uncultured individuals cannot and do not have any appreciation of nature or an incorrect one. This is a puzzling concept and one that I think we could have discussed further. But, alas, there isn't enough time int he world to completely flesh out each idea that we came up with in class.