title: Fire in the mind: changing understandings of fire in Western civilization.
abstract: For most of human history, fire has been a pervasive presence in human life, and so also in human thought. This essay examines the ways in which fire has functioned intellectually in Western civilization as mythology, as religion, as natural philosophy and as modern science. The great phase change occurred with the development of industrial combustion; fire faded from quotidian life, which also removed it from the world of informing ideas. Beginning with the discovery of oxygen, fire as an organizing concept fragmented into various subdisciplines of natural science and forestry. The Anthropocene, however, may revive the intellectual role of fire as an informing idea or at least a narrative conceit.This article is part of the themed issue 'The interaction of fire and mankind'.
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Box 874501, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA stephen.pyne@asu.edu.
authors.forename: Stephen J
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-5298-0616
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Pyne
mesh_terms: D005390:Fires / Q000266:history*; D049668:History, 15th Century; D049669:History, 16th Century; D049670:History, 17th Century; D049671:History, 18th Century; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D049690:History, Ancient; D049691:History, Medieval; D006801:Humans; D009229:Mythology / Q000523:psychology*; D010684:Philosophy / Q000266:history*; D012067:Religion / Q000266:history*; D012586:Science / Q000266:history*; D019366:Western World
keywords: Anthropocene; fire; history; history of ideas; history of science