Insides and Outsides : Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Animate Nature

Insides and Outsides brings together diverse aspects of animate nature, diverse not only in terms of animate nature itself, but in terms of areas of study. Indeed, the book lives up to the word "interdisciplinary" in its title. It brings together diverse academic perspectives within each chapter and across chapters, showing in each instance that scientific understandings of animate nature are -- or can be -- complementary to philosophical understandings. Thus insides and outsides, typically viewed as subjective vs. objective, mind vs. body, and self vs. other, are shown to be woven together in complex and subtle ways in the complexities and subtleties of animate life itself.

Maxine Sheets-Johnstone is an independent scholar affiliated with the Department of Philosophy, University of Oregon. This volume is the third in a series of studies about roots. The previous volumes are The Roots of Thinking (1990) and The Roots of Power (1994).