ABSTRACT
This chapter is an attempt to reconnect with the ancient sense of nature as originally intuited in cosmological myths and later with the rise of Greek philosophy. Its aim is to show how the rational and the ethical were once always connected and that these two give a society its sense of being part of nature and the greater cosmic order. This takes us through narrative understanding as well as ethical understanding, where modes of knowledge are shown to be participatory and responsible. From that, it traces the rise of Natural Law in the Middle Ages and the understanding of ownership and right use of property. With the emergence of the mechanistic vision of nature in the seventeenth century, Western society lost its participatory relationship with nature, with the consequences of commercial exploitation and environmental abuse. The discussion ends with a reminder that, despite the modern alienation from nature, all people have an innate sense of the whole and a moral call to live in harmony with nature.
