The Living World

Discover the secrets of the earth and its extraordinary habitats.

Today we urgently need to reevaluate the human place in the world in relation to other animals. This book puts Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy into dialogue with literature, evolutionary biology, and animal studies. In a radical departure from most critical animal studies, it argues for evolutionary continuity between human cultural and linguistic behaviors and the semiotic activities of other animals. In his late work, Derrida complained of philosophers who denied that animals possessed such faculties, but he never investigated the wealth of scientific studies of actual animal behavior. Most animal studies theorists still fail to do this. Yet more than fifty years ago, Merleau-Ponty carefully examined the philosophical consequences of scientific animal studies, with profound implications for human language and culture. For him, “animality is the logos of the sensible world: an incorporated meaning.” Human being is inseparable from animality. This book differs from other studies of Merleau-Ponty by emphasizing his lifelong attention to science. It shows how his attention to evolutionary biology and ethology anticipated recent studies of animal cognition, culture, and communication.

Whether she is writing about bats, bees, procupines, or wolves, contemplating the mysteries of caves, or delving into the traditions, beliefs, and myths of Native American cultures, Linda Hogan expresses a deep reverence for the dwelling we all share--the Earth. 16 line drawings.

This lab manual is designed for A Level and first-year undergraduate students of general biology. It is split into 40 separate experiments, all of which have been designed to enhance students' deductive and reasoning powers. Pupils are expected to describe the results of the experiments, reason why they acheived these results and be prepared to explain the biological processes that have occurred.

Simple, yet informative text combines with extraordinary photographys, maps, animal facts and classification charts.

This atlas reveals the ever-changing patterns of life on Earth. It explains where plants and animals live, and why they exist where they do. On a global scale, the atlas charts the physical forces that have shaped the Earth, and the biological processes that have determined the life of the planet.