David Macauley is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Environmental Studies at Penn State University, Brandywine. He is the editor of Minding Nature: The Philosophers of Ecology.

Preface
Acknowledgments

Introduction
Four-Thought
Sheltering the Elements
Plan of the Work

Part I: Elemental Encounters and Ideas

1. Philosophy's Forgotten Four

Earth
Air
Fire
Water

Interstice: Stone

2. The Topology of the Elemental Environment

Elementary Letters
Elemental Places
Elements as Archetypes
Elemental Opposition
Elemental Substances
Chemical Elements
Cultural Comparisons
The Frame of the Four
Social Construction of the Elements

Interstice: Wood

Part II: Elemental Theories

3. The Flowering of Ecological Roots: Empedocles' Elemental Thought

Four-Play
The Problem of the Poems
Square Roots and Radical Rhizomes
Empedocles' Elemental Cosmology
Ecological and Political Equality
Organic Unity
Environmental Action
Anticipation of Evolution
Animal Empathy
Environmental Roots
Ecological Ethos
Crafting Nature
Purity and Pollution
The Rhizomes of Deleuze and Guattari

Interstice: Ice and Snow

4. Plato's Chora-graphy of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water

The ABC of Everything
A Probable Physics
Derivation of Earth, Air, Fire, and Waterspan
The Corpus of an Ecological Cosmoscla
Second Beginnings and Constrained Constructionss
Removing the Spell of the Elements
Elemental Recycling
Forms of the Four?
Elements Emplaced: Chora-graphy in the Matrix
Construction and Structure of the Primary Bodies
War and Play of the Elements
Dispatching the Stoicheia: Elemental S/endings
Husserl and the Mathematization of Nature
Postscript to Plato: Whitehead's Philosophical Footnotes

Interstice: Cloud

5. The Place of the Elements and the Elements of Place: Aristotle's Natural Household

Four Accounts of Five Elements
A Dictionary of Elemental Definitions
The Ancient Generation Gap
Pondering Weight
The Place of the Elements
The Elements of Place
Homecoming and Inhabitation

Interstice: Heat and Cold

6. The Economy and Ecology of the Aristotelian Elements

Hot, Cold, Wet, and Dry
Converting the Contraries
Compounding the Quartet
Prime Matter as Persisting Problem
Extra Terrestrials: The Fifth Element
Elemental Contact: Beholding Tangible Bodies
In Touch with the Environment
The Soul and the External World
Aristotle and Ecology

Interstice: Light and Shadow

Part III: Elemental Worlds

7. Domestication of the Elements

Outside-In
Plumbing Philosophy
Watercraft and Landscape Aesthetics
From Waterways to Waterworks
Bottled Water
Fire and Water
Eclipse of the Atmosphere
Escape from Earth
End of the Elements?

Interstice: Night

8. In Touch With the Sensuous World: The Reclamation of the Elemental in Continental Philosophy

Elemental Reveries: Bachelard's Poetics
Elemental Dwelling: Heidegger's Fourfold
Elemental Flesh: Merleau-Ponty's Re-membering
Elemental Sensibility: Levinas on Enjoyment
Elemental Imperatives: Lingis and Our Sensuous Surroundings
Elemental Passions: Irigaray on Breath and Body
Elemental Landscapes: Casey on Place
Elemental Nature: Sallis on Imagination
From Elements to the Elemental

Interstice: Space

9. Revaluing Earth, Air, Fire, and Water: Elemental Beauty, Ecological Duty, and Environmental Policy

Elemental Ethics
Elemental Aesthetics
Environmental Action
Bewildering Order

Notes
Index