The discussion of nature was the focus of the visit of Robert Richards (Director of the Fishbein Center for the History of Science, Chicago). Richards is a philosopher and historian who is well known for his outstanding studies of Darwin, biology, and conceptions of evolution (e.g., Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior).

In a just completed book, The Romantic Conception of Life: Poetry and the Organic in the Age of Goethe, he has turned his attention to eighteenth and nineteenth century scientific uses of the concept of life. He discussed the roots of this development in the philosophical, personal, and scientific interactions of the Jena circle.

The topics of his sessions were (1) "The Erotic Authority of Nature: Art, Science, and Women during Goethe's Italian Journey" and (2) "The Poetry of Nature, or How Schelling Solved Goethe's Kantian Problems."

Nature, Art, and Politics after Kant / Colorado State University / Fort Collins, CO 80521 
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