Why do we continue to adopt lifestyles that are destructive to both the ecological and social levels? The relative failure of environmental ethics is, above all, due to the fact that it has neither been able to link ecology with a philosophy of existence that could enable people to respect nature and its beauty, nor to indicate the way to a possible renewal of democracy. One has to face this double task. By considering everything we live on and depend (...) upon as nourishment, and not as resources, we understand our inhabiting the earth as living together with other living beings. The political consequences of this phenomenology of corporeality, which emphasizes the aesthetic dimension of our relationship to nature, are highlighted. The question of which moral dispositions are required of subjects to achieve the ecological transition are highlighted, as well as the question of what kind of role aesthetics play in ethics and politics. (shrink)

As we owe the division of ecology into autecology and synecology to botanists, the arguments for this subdivision and also the definitions and contents of both subsciences as given bySchröter, Flahault &Schröter, Gams andDu Rietz are communicated in full. The same is the case with the division of ecology given by the zoologistsAdams andChapman. Moreover the opinions of these authors in this respect are critisized in detail as well as in their general aspects. This critique is connected with (...) the author's own positive opinion, which is given at the end of the paper, where also the remarks covered by the first two papers of this series are summarised.In ecology as a biological science either the individual or the complex of individuals has to occupy a central position. Therefore science about the environment, especially the abiotic one, as well as science about a definite region or spot of the earth ought not to be incorporated in biology.In autecology the individual occupies a central position, it is one of the subsciences of idiobiology, it is a science about the relations to environment, taken in the broadest sense. Dependent upon the contents of this we have many definitions of ecology, the most important ones being: 1) ecology is a biogeographical subscience; 2) ecology is taken in the sense of ethology; 3) ecology is taken as a science of the teleological relations of the individual to its environment and the objects in it, thus of the non-causal relations, the causal ones being assigned to physiology. These non-causal relations appear under four aspects, all called teleological, i.e. the true purpose-notion, relation in the sense of requirement, that in the sense of wholeness, and of adaptation and the degree of adaptation. Adaptation is taken in a broad sense, covering as well the degree of adaptation , as the latitude of the possibility of adaptation and the degree of variability of the individual to adapt itself. The proposal is made to confine the term autecology to this teleological aspect of the relations of the individual, i.e. of all its characters, not of the epharmonic ones only, to environment.In synecology the complex of individuals, showing direct real connections during individual life, occupies a central position, with equal scientific interest for all members of the complex. Synecology contains all biological scientific contents about this matter. The application ofTschulok's system of subsciences to synecology is critisized and the development of the system of these subsciences is left to its developmental fate in time. Considering the importance of the knowledge of the tendencies of thought for the development of synecology an attempt is made to state those already applied in synecology; author distinguishes the systematical, the mathematical, the causal, the historical, the teleological and the essential tendency of thought. Also the difference in the tendencies of thought shows that autecology and synecology are to be separated in a logical system of biological subsciences.Puisque c'est aux botanistes que nous devons la division de l'écologie en autécologie et synécologie, l'auteur passe en revue tous les arguments qui ont amené les biologistes à faire cette subdivision, ainsi que les définitions de ces deux subsciences et les matières qu'elles comprennent, comme elles sont données parSchröter, Flahault &Schröter, Gams etdu Rietz. Il en fait de même pour la division de l'écologie faite par les zoologistesAdams etChapman. En outre il discute les opinions de ces auteurs sous ce rapport, dans leurs détails aussi bien que dans leurs aspects généraux. Cette discussion est en rapport avec l'opinion positive de l'auteur, qu'il expose à la fin de l'article, où se trouvent résumées également les remarques qui se trouvaient déjà dans les deux premiers articles de cette série.Dans l'écologie, en tant que science biologique, l'individu — ou bien l'ensemble des individus — doit occuper une position centrale. C'est pourquoi ni la science qui concerne le milieu, en particulier le milieu abiotique, ni la science qui se rapporte à une région ou un endroit défini de la terre, ne devrait être incorporée dans la biologie.Dans l'autécologie l'individu occupe une position centrale. Cette science est une des subsciences de l'idiobiologie; elle se rapporte aux relations entre le sujet et son milieu — „milieu” pris dans le sens le plus large du mot. Selon les significations diverses qu'on peut attacher aux termes „relations” et „milieu”, nous avons plusieurs définitions de l'écologie, parmi lesquelles les plus importantes suivent ci-dessous:1)L'écologie est une subscience biogéographique; 2) le terme „écologie” est pris dans le sens d'éthologie; 3) l'écologie est considérée comme la science des relations téléologiques entre l'individu et son milieu et les objets se trouvant dans ce milieu; elle est donc considérée comme la science des relations non-causales, les relations causales étant conférées à la physiologie. Ces relations non-causales se présentent sous quatre aspects, tous appelés téléologiques, c. à. d. la vraie notion de but, les relations dans le sens de besoins, les relations dans le sens de „tout” et les relations dans le sens d'adaptation et de degré d'adaptation.Le mot „adaptation” est pris dans un sens étendu, comprenant aussi bien le degré d'adaptation que l'amplitude de la possibilité d'adaptation et le degré de variabilité dans l'adaptation de l'individu à son milieu. L'auteur propose de restreindre le terme „autécologie” à cet aspect téléologique des relations entre l'individu et son milieu; il s'agit ici, bien entendu, de toutes les qualités de l'individu et non seulement des qualités epharmoniques.Dans la synécologie l'ensemble des individus montrant des rapports directs et réels durant la vie individuelle occupe une position centrale et offre un intérêt scientifique pareil pour tous les membres de l'ensemble. La synécologie comprend tout ce qu'il y a à dire sur cette matière par rapport à la science biologique. L'application du système des subsciences deTschulok à la synécologie est critiquée par l'auteur, qui juge prématuré de s'occuper déjà d'un tel système de subsciences: l'avenir seul nous apprendra quel système se développera ici. Vu l'importance d'une connaissance exacte des différentes tendances de penser pour le développement de la synécologie, l'auteur s'efforce de rassembler celles qui ont déjà été appliquées dans la synécologie; il distingue les tendances de penser systématique, mathématique, causale, historique, téléologique et essentielle . En outre les différences entre ces tendances de penser démontrent, que l'autécologie et la synécologie doivent être séparées dans un système logique de subsciences biologiques. (shrink)

("Consciousness of Time, Ecology, and Ethics") The paper investigates the impact of global environmental issues on our consciousness of time and vice versa. In Part I, I first analyze in detail how various kinds of temporal structure, such as linear progress, circularity etc., are built and what makes us select one of them as being universal. Part II discusses types of confusion and distortion of our consciousness of time due to global environmental issues. Since our consciousness of time is (...) fundamental to our way of perceiving and dealing with the environment, the topic has also an ethical dimension. In Part III, following Hans Jonas’ approach of ethics, I ask what kind of a consciousness of time is adequate for responsibly treating our environment. (shrink)

n three overtures on economy, ecology and >echo-logy< of attention this paper introduces Aristotle's conception of economics. In particular, in Giorgio Agamben's theological-patristic reading of the oikos and the double theoretical movement of a politicization of the oikos and an economization of the political. In the background of a totalitarian concept of budgetary thinking. In Agamben's interpretation, the form of intimate household and domesticity itself becomes a threshold phenomenon - which this paper refers to as the oikos of alterity, (...) indicating a necessity of incorporating Oikos' figures in political life and its economization as well in political order. In a second opening coming from fin-de-siècle debates on cinematic distraction the paper shows the critical discourse of socio-cultural techniques of attention and media of modernity while facing the rise of the media of cinema and internet can be described as transitions in attention economy. A third opening introduces in economic metaphors of attention analysed and their move from modern economic theory into biology and Cognitive Sciences. Finally, a recent metaphorologic shift from economic metaphors of attention to acoustic resonance and ecology metaphors of attention, starting with the >echo-logical< attention metaphor of Yves Citton, is hinted on. (shrink)

The question of whether there are laws in ecology is important for a number of reasons. If, as some have suggested, there are no ecological laws, this would seem to distinguish ecology from other branches of science, such as physics. It could also make a difference to the methodology of ecology. If there are no laws to be discovered, ecologists would seem to be in the business of merely supplying a suite of useful models. These models would (...) need to be assessed for their empirical adequacy but not for their ability to capture fundamental truths, or the like. If, on the other hand, ecology does have laws, this prompts further questions about what these laws are and why even the best candidates for ecological laws fall short of what might be expected of laws. (shrink)

In diesem Vortrag möchte ich die plurale Anwendbarkeit von Naturbegriffen exemplarisch nur an einem Ausschnitt des naturphilosophischen Diskurses, an der speziellen Klasse der antithetischen Bestimmungen erörtern: Die aristotelische Entgegensetzung von Natur und Technik, die cartesische von Natur und Denken und die rousseausche von Natur und Gesellschaft. Bei ihrer Rekonstruktion suche ich, Erfahrungen herauszuarbeiten, auf die sich die extensionalen Festlegungen jeweils stützen, um in erster Näherung drei "bevorzugte Verwendungskontexte" abzugrenzen. Die Definition dieser Kontexte nehme ich mir anschließend unabhängig von den Naturbegriffen (...) vor. Im Resultat findet vorzugsweise die aristotelische Naturdefinition in einem lebensweltlichen Kontext, die cartesische in einem subjektiven und die rousseausche in einem öffentlichen Kontext Verwendung. Bei diesen Kontexten handelt es sich um Erfahrungsbereiche, die für das Verhältnis des Menschen zur Natur von grundlegender Bedeutung sind. Die Möglichkeit, traditionelle Naturbegriffe in ihnen anwenden zu können, läßt umgekehrt darauf schließen, daß in diesen Begriffen heute noch elementare Erfahrungen zum Ausdruck kommen. (shrink)

"Ökologie ist in den Medien- und Kulturwissenschaften derzeit von hoher begrifflicher Konjunktur. Damit stellt sich die Frage nach dem Gebrauch, dem Potential und der historischen wie medialen Verfasstheit verschiedener Konzepte von Ökologie und deren jeweilige Fassung von Natur, Organismus und Relationalität. Eine Analyse von Ernst Haeckels Genereller Morphologie und seiner Sarcode-Versuche arbeitet verschiedene Modellierungen von (Inter-)Relationalität, insbesondere Organismus-Außenwelt-Beziehungen in der Ökologie heraus. Ecology is a term that is much discussed in recent media and cultural studies. This (...) raises the question of the use, the potential and the historical and medial constitution of different concepts of ecology and their respective understandings of nature, organism and relationality. This paper presents an analysis of Ernst Haeckel’s General Morphology and his Sarcodes-experiments and elaborates different models of (inter-)relationality, especially relations between organisms and environment, in ecology. ". (shrink)

Translation abstractSummary: Risks in the Making: The Mediating Role of Models in Water Management and Civil Engineering in the Netherlands. Reliance on models can make technological cultures susceptible to risks through the assumptions, uncertainties, and blind spots that may accompany modeling practices. Historian of science Peter Galison has described computer modeling practices as “trading zones”, conceptual spaces in which a shared language is hammered out in an attempt to facilitate collaboration between different social groups, such as engineers and policymakers. Although (...) such a shared language may enable collaboration between diverse groups, it may also make the relation between modeling practices and knowledge of risks less visible, since the shared language does not necessarily acknowledge how models produce knowledge about their world. In that respect, models have a ‘mediating’ role, since they are not straightforward representations of the world, but involve a process of translating phenomena into formalized representations that enable experimentation. Drawing on insights from Science and Technology Studies (STS) and empirical work in the domains of hydrology, hydrodynamics, geotechnical engineering, and ecology, this paper emphasizes the importance of understanding the mediating role of models in shaping the understanding that various actors hold with regard to water‐related risks. Failing to appreciate the mediating role of models hampers the ability of actors to understand the assumptions, uncertainties, and blind spots that accompany simulation practices, and may put technological cultures at risk. (shrink)

Der Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit kulturanthropologischen und literarischen Reflexionen auf den Bewegungsmodus des Gehens. Er diskutiert die Frage, inwieweit das Gehen in diesen Diskursen als Linienpraxis aufgefasst wird. Ausgangspunkt ist die Beobachtung, dass die Kulturanthropologie, die dem aufrechten Gang eine Schlüsselfunktion für die Anthropogenese zuweist, diesen zugleich als Produkt eines ›Begradigungsprozesses‹ markiert und an die dichotomische Gegenüberstellung von Natur und Kultur koppelt. In literarischen Texten, aber auch in neueren ökoanthropologischen Ansätzen wird die Natur-Kultur-Opposition und die damit verbundene Privilegierung der geraden (...) Linie kritisch hinterfragt. Setzt die literarische Peripatetik mithin eine alternative Form der Beziehung zwischen Mensch und Umwelt in Szene? Entwirft sie eine Ökologie des Denkens und Wahrnehmens, die sich jenseits der Natur-Kultur-Dichotomie bewegt? Diese Fragen werden an ausgewählten Fallbeispielen beleuchtet. The essay deals with the peripatetic mode of movement as reflected in cultural anthropology and literature. It asks to what extent these discourses view walking as a practice of line-making. The point of departure is the observation that cultural anthropology ascribes a key role to the upright gait within anthropogenesis while associating it with a process of rectilinearization on the one hand and a sharp dichotomy between nature and culture on the other hand. Certain literary texts and recent approaches in ecologically oriented anthropology have, however, challenged the validity of this dichotomy and the concomitant privilege of the straight line. Does literary peripatetics thus propose an alternative way to grasp the relationship between human beings and the environment? Does it outline a new ecology of the mind that supersedes the binary relation between nature and culture? These questions are discussed with reference to selected case studies. (shrink)

Friedrich Georg Jungers grosser Essay Die Perfektion der Technik - 1939 geschrieben, 1946 erstmals veroffentlicht - ist ein Klassiker der Kulturkritik, der die moderne Debatte um Okologie und Nachhaltigkeit jenseits aller Ideologien vorweggenommen hat. Mit Recht wurde Jungers Buch epochalen Werken wie der "Dialektik der Aufklarung" von Horkheimer/Adorno sowie der "Antiquiertheit des Menschen" von Gunther Anders gleichrangig zur Seite gestellt. Nicht zu unterschatzen ist der Einfluss, den Jungers Denken auf die Technikphilosophie des spaten Heidegger ausgeubt hat. Als Okologie und Umweltschutz (...) in den 1970er Jahren zu "linken" Themen avancierten, wirkte Jungers Buch zwar subkutan noch weiter, geriet aber allmahlich aus dem Blickfeld einer breiteren Offentlichkeit. "Die Perfektion der Technik" harrt heute ihrer Wiederentdeckung, die allemal lohnend ware. Junger denkt quer zu vielen Folgerungen und Resultaten, die uns heute selbstverstandlich scheinen. Man muss Friedrich Georg Junger nicht folgen, aber man kann die Tragfahigkeit des eigenen Standpunktes an seinen Entwurfen erproben. Das ausfuhrliche Nachwort des Friedrich Georg Junger-Biographen Andreas Geyer stellt das Buch in seinem historischen und intellektuellen Kontext vor und zeigt seine Originalitat und Aktualitat. Friedrich Georg Junger's ambitious essay "Die Perfektion der Technik" (written in 1939, but first published only after the war in 1946) is a classic of cultural criticism that has anticipated the modern debate on ecology and sustainability beyond all ideologies. Junger's book was rightly granted equal status with other contemporaneous work of considerable influence, such as the "Dialektik der Aufklarung" ("The Dialectics of Enlightenment") by Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno and "Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen" ("The Outdatedness of Human Beings") by Gunther Anders. Incidentally, the influence Junger's thinking exerted on the late Martin Heidegger's philosophy of technology is not to be underestimated. Ecology and environmental protection became "left-wing" topics in the 1970s, and though Junger's book still acted on its readers, it gradually fell out of favor with a broader public. The perfection of technology today awaits its rediscovery, which would always be rewarding. Junger's thoughts on Nietzsche run against the grain of what we take for granted in current Nietzsche studies. The detailed epilogue by Friedrich Georg Junger's biographer Andreas Geyer presents the book in its historical and intellectual context and shows its undiminished originality. (shrink)

Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, EarlyView.

Die Ethik ist eine Wissenschaft, die sich in der Praxis zu bewähren hat. Unsere hochkomplexe Gesellschaft, unsere hochspezialisierte Technik im Human- und Außer Human Bereich, wie auch die weltanschaulich und kulturell durchmischten Lebensformen stellen uns zwangsläufig auch vor ethische Frage: wie weit sind unsere Lebenswelten (noch) vereinbar mit unseren Grundvorstellungen von Humanität, Freiheit und Gerechtigkeit? Der Autor war nicht bloß während Jahrzehnten Universitätslehrer an verschiedenen Universitäten und Fakultäten, sondern er hat sich als solcher in der politischen Öffentlichkeit - sei es (...) als Experte, sei es als Mitglied verschiedener Gremien, sei es als engagierter Bürger - immer wieder zu Wort gemeldet. Es war ihm wichtig, den theologisch-ethischen Diskurs in die Öffentlichkeit hineinzutragen. Im Zentrum standen - wen wundert's - Fragen der Menschenwürde, der Menschenrechte, von Gewalt und Frieden, der Lebensethik, der Ökologie. Die besondere Herausforderung bestand jeweils darin, theologisch-ethische Grundüberzeugungen in eine Welt hinein zu formulieren, deren ausgeprägte Säkularität und kulturelle Diversität eine zusätzliche Schwierigkeit der Vermittlung bedeuten. Die hier zusammengefügten Reflexionen, Essays und Stellungnahmen sind markante, repräsentative Ausschnitte eines Jahrzentelangen Erwägens und Nachdenkens, was nötig ist und was in wichtigen Lebensbereichen aus ethischer Sicht zu tun ist. Manches ist heute dringlicher geworden (z.B. Klimaethik); manches ist aber auch offener geworden aufgrund neuer Erfahrung und neuer Erkenntnis (z.B. Sexualmoral). So wird der Sammelband nicht bloß zu einem Dokument einer öffentlichen-politischen Moraltheologie, sondern auch zu einem Zeugnis kritischer Auseinandersetzung "in der Zeit". (shrink)

"Der Aufsatz rekonstruiert die historische Genese der politischen Ökologie im 19. Jahrhundert am Beispiel des Zoologen Karl August Möbius. Als entscheidendes Paradigma der Vorgeschichte wird die Bevölkerungsdebatte um 1800 herausgearbeitet. Vor diesem Hintergrund entsteht die politisch-ökologische Perspektive durch die Übertragung klassischer Prinzipien der Ökonomie auf Tiergemeinschaften und von dort wieder zurück auf eine zoologisch verstandene Menschenwelt. The paper reconstructs the historical genesis of political ecology in the 19th century by the example of the zoologist Karl Möbius. The population (...) debate around 1800 is elaborated as a decisive paradigm of its emergence. Against this background, the political-ecological perspective arises through the transfer of classical economic principles on animal com- munities and their retransfer back to a human world that is now understood in zoological terms. ". (shrink)

In the first edition of Radical Ecology --the now classic examination major philosophical, ethical, scientific, and economic roots of environmental problems--Carolyn Merchant responded to the profound awareness of environmental crisis which prevailed in the closing decade of the twentieth century. In this provocative and readable study, Merchant examined the ways that radical ecologists can transform science and society in order to sustain life on this planet. Now in this second edition, Merchant continues to emphasize how laws, regulations and scientific (...) research alone cannot reverse the spread of pollution or restore our dwindling resources. Merchant argues that in order to maintain a livable world, we must formulate new social, economic, scientific, and spiritual approaches that will fundamentally transform human relationships with nature. She analyzes the revolutionary ideas of visionary ecologists for a new economy, society, science, and religion, and examines their efforts to bring environmental problems to the attention of the public. This new edition features a new Introduction from the author, a thorough updating of chapters, and two entirely new chapters on recent global movements and globalization and the environment. It is a timely update that will give students everything they need to know on the most recent philosophical positions and social movements that characterize the radical ecology spectrum. (shrink)

In this paper I claim that perceptual discriminatory skills rely on a suitable type of environment as an enabling condition for their exercise. This is because of the constitutive connection between environment and perceptual discriminatory skills, inasmuch as such connection is construed from an ecological approach. The exercise of a discriminatory skill yields knowledge of affordances of objects, properties, or events in the surrounding environment. This is practical knowledge in the first-person perspective. An organism learns to perceive an object by (...) becoming sensitized to its affordances. I call this position ecological disjunctivism. A corollary of this position is that a case of perception and its corresponding case of hallucination—which is similar to the former only in some respects—are different in nature. I show then how the distinguishability problem is addressed by ecological disjunctivism. (shrink)

With the arrival of European explorers and settlers during the seventeenth century, Native American ways of life and the environment itself underwent radical alterations as human relationships to the land and ways of thinking about nature all changed. This colonial ecological revolution held sway until the nineteenth century, when New England's industrial production brought on a capitalist revolution that again remade the ecology, economy, and conceptions of nature in the region. In Ecological Revolutions, Carolyn Merchant analyzes these two major (...) transformations in the New England environment between 1600 and 1860. In a preface to the second edition, Merchant introduces new ideas about narrating environmental change based on gender and the dialectics of transformation, while the revised epilogue situates New England in the context of twenty-first-century globalization and climate change. Merchant argues that past ways of relating to the land could become an inspiration for renewing resources and achieving sustainability in the future. (shrink)

Ecological-enactive approaches to cognition aim to explain cognition in terms of the dynamic coupling between agent and environment. Accordingly, cognition of one’s immediate environment (which is sometimes labeled “basic” cognition) depends on enaction and the picking up of affordances. However, ecological-enactive views supposedly fail to account for what is sometimes called “higher” cognition, i.e., cognition about potentially absent targets, which therefore can only be explained by postulating representational content. This challenge levelled against ecological-enactive approaches highlights a putative explanatory gap between (...) basic and higher cognition. In this paper, we examine scientific cognition—a paradigmatic case of higher cognition—and argue that it shares fundamental features with basic cognition, for enaction and affordance selection are central to the scientific enterprise. Our argument focuses on modeling, and on how models promote scientific understanding. We base our argument on a non-representational account of scientific understanding and on the material engagement theory, for models are hereby conceived as material objects designed for scientific engagements. Having done so, we conclude that the explanatory gap is significantly less threatening to the ecological-enactive approach than it might appear. (shrink)

How does the complex nature of ecological systems affect ecologists' ability to study them? This Element argues that ecological systems are complex in a rather special way: they are causally heterogeneous. The author presents an updated philosophical account with an optimistic outlook of the methods and status of ecological research.

The author argues that all forms of life are interconnected and that no being, construct, or object can exist independently from the ecological entanglement, nor does "nature" exist as an entity separate from the uglier or more synthetic elements of life. Realizing this interconnectedness is what the author calls the ecological thought. He investigates the philosophical, political, and aesthetic implications of this interconnectedness.

Ducklings were placed either singly or in pairs on a platform at two different heights. Both height and pairing influenced performance: More ducklings descended from the platform at low heights, and more single ducklings descended than paired ducklings. The social factor, pairing, made behavior more cautious and decreased the number of distress calls. A similar trend for pairing to influence performance was shown on the visual cliff. Without its peers, the duckling is a distressed animal. Previous careless behavior by ducklings (...) on the visual cliff may be ascribed to testing the ducklings outside their normal social environment. (shrink)

Mind Ecologies: Body, Brain, and World: Book Abstract from Columbian University Press -/- Matthew Crippen and Jay Schulkin -/- Pragmatism, a pluralistic philosophy with kinships to phenomenology, Gestalt psychology and embodied cognitive science, is resurging across disciplines. It has growing relevance to literary studies, the arts, and religious scholarship, along with branches of political theory, not to mention our understanding of science. But philosophies and sciences of mind have lagged behind this pragmatic turn, for the most part retaining a central-nervous-system (...) orientation, which pragmatists rejected as far too narrow. -/- Matthew Crippen, a biologically orientated philosopher of mind, and Jay Schulkin, a pioneer in neuroscience, offer an innovative interdisciplinary theory of mind. They argue that pragmatism in combination with phenomenology is not only able to give an unusually persuasive rendering of how we think, feel, experience, and act in the world but also the account most consistent with evidence from cognitive science and neurobiology. Crippen and Schulkin contend that cognition, emotion, and perception are incomplete without action, and in action they fuse together. Not only are we embodied subjects whose thoughts, emotions, and capacities comprise one integrated system; we are living ecologies inseparable from our surroundings, our cultures, and our world. Ranging from social coordination to the role of gut bacteria and visceral organs in mental activity, and touching upon fields such as robotics, artificial intelligence, and plant cognition, Crippen and Schulkin stress the role of aesthetics, emotions, interests, and moods in the ongoing enactment of experience. Synthesizing philosophy, neurobiology, psychology, and the history of science, Mind Ecologies offers a broad and deep exploration of evidence for the embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended nature of mind. (shrink)

The hatchet and the seed -- A tree with deep roots -- The critical tools -- A field crystallizes -- Destruction of nature -- Construction of nature -- Degradation and marginalization -- Conservation and control -- Environmental conflict -- Environmental identity and social movement -- Where to now?

This is a book about how we see: the environment around us (its surfaces, their layout, and their colors and textures); where we are in the environment; whether or not we are moving and, if we are, where we are going; what things are good for; how to do things (to thread a needle or drive an automobile); or why things look as they do.The basic assumption is that vision depends on the eye which is connected to the brain. The (...) author suggests that natural vision depends on the eyes in the head on a body supported by the ground, the brain being only the central organ of a complete visual system. When no constraints are put on the visual system, people look around, walk up to something interesting and move around it so as to see it from all sides, and go from one vista to another. That is natural vision—and what this book is about. (shrink)

This paper sets out to launch a challenge to the usual ‘modernist’ view of the relationship between ecology and ethics. Two ‘post-modern’ interpretations of this relationship are considered. The first ‘deep’ interpretation holds that ecology reveals that nature has intrinsic value. The second interpretation derives from the work of Michel Foucault. The aim of his critique is to reveal how certain values are taken for granted by the acceptance of certain scientific models, and how the acceptance of those (...) models as true makes it impossible to articulate alternative values. I end by suggesting, contra Foucault, that phenomenological enquiry could serve to articulate alternative and perhaps more eco-friendly values. (shrink)

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a psychopathological condition characterized by persistent deficits in social interaction and communication, and restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior and interests. To build an ecological-enactive account of autism, I propose we should endorse the affordance-based approach of the skilled intentionality framework (SIF). In SIF, embodied cognition is understood as skilled engagement with affordances in the sociomaterial environment of the ecological niche by which an individual tends toward the optimal grip. The human econiche offers a whole landscape (...) of affordances, and situated individuals respond to a field of relevant affordances. An important part of SIF is an ecological-enactive interpretation of the free energy principle and predictive processing. Predictive processing accounts indicate that in ASD too much precision is assigned to prediction errors. Autistic persons depend heavily on current sensory information and less on prior beliefs and cannot attune to stable regularities. To reduce uncertainty, they over-rely on routines, strict habits, and a familiar environment—a predictable ecological niche they construct. I argue that skilled intentionality gives us the framework from which to analyze the autistic field of affordances. Autistic patterns of affordance-related bodily states of action readiness are only sensitive to very specific solicitations in the environment and achieve optimal grip in well-known situations. Autism is to be understood as a disorder of bodily normativity. Taking this approach helps us figure out what neurotypical people can do to attune their environment in order to scaffold the needs of autistic individuals by redesigning the landscape of affordances. (shrink)

This is the first book-length treatment of the metaphysical foundations of ecological ethics. The author seeks to provide a metaphysical illumination of the fundamental ecological intuitions that we are in some sense `one with' nature and that everything is connected with everything else. Drawing on contemporary cosmology, systems theory and the history of philosophy, Freya Mathews elaborates a new metaphysics of `interconnectedness'. She offers an inspiring vision of the spiritual implications of ecology, which leads to a deepening of our (...) conception of conservation. (shrink)

Political ecology has developed as an academic discipline in reaction to the increased concern of nations and individuals about humanity's adverse impact on the environment and the ways international bodies have moved to counter this impact. This new text draws together international experts at the cutting edge of this new field to focus on real world examples of problems and the tension between developed and developing states.

Since the 1960s, many artists have incorporated ecological concerns into their work, an endeavor that has required new strategies in art-making. To explore recent American manifestations of these interests, the David and Alfred Smart Museum commissioned new projects from artists Mark Dion, Peter Fend, and Dan Peterman, each focusing on interrelationships between particular organisms—human beings-and a specific group of sites—a museum building, a river landscape, and a university campus. The results, exhibited at the Smart Museum during the summer of 2000, (...) evoke the varied scales, from the microscopic to the global, at which human actions affect the environment. This catalog documents each of the artists' projects through an array of images and words: Smart Museum Associate Curator Stephanie Smith provides an introduction and brief overviews of the three projects, each of the artists contribute statements, and photographers Susan Anderson and Tom van Eynde document—in over 100 images—the processes and projects that comprise the exhibition. (shrink)

Ethical implications of the concept of ecological space can be drawn from the focus it brings to issues arising from the finitude and vulnerability of habitats. An evident ethical concern is that each person should have sufficient access to support at least a minimally decent life. The demands placed by the world’s human population on its ecological space, however, are such that some members do not have enough of it for their health and well-being. One aspect of this problem is (...) the finitude of the earth’s aggregate biophysical capacity; another is that some humans make vastly more use of the planet’s ecological space than others do. In relation to the normative assessment and regulation of human activities, I recommend differentiating between using, occupying, and commanding ecological space. It is in relation to these activities that deontic categories—of prescription, proscription and permission—can be applied. (shrink)

Ecological Psychology and Enactivism both challenge representationist cognitive science, but the two approaches have only begun to engage in dialogue. Further conceptual clarification is required in which differences are as important as common ground. This paper enters the dialogue by focusing on important differences. After a brief account of the parallel histories of Ecological Psychology and Enactivism, we cover incompatibility between them regarding their theories of sensation and perception. First, we show how and why in ecological theory perception is, crucially, (...) not based on sensation. We elucidate this idea by examining the biological roots of work in the two fields, concentrating on Gibson and Varela and Maturana. We expound an ecological critique of any sensation-based approach to perception by detailing two topics: classic retinal image theories and perception in single-celled organisms. The second main point emphasizes the importance of the idea of organism-environment mutuality and its difference from structural coupling of sensations and motor behavior. We point out how ecological - phenomenological methods of inquiry grow out of mutualism and compare Gibson’s idea of visual kinesthesis to Merleau-Ponty’s idea of the lived body. Third, we conclude that Ecological Psychology and varieties of Enactivism are laying down different paths to pursue related goals. Thus, convergence of Ecological Psychology and Enactivism is not possible given their conflicting assumptions, but cross-fertilization is possible and desirable. (shrink)

What is the optimal political framework for environmental reform reform on a scale commensurate with the global ecological crisis? In particular, how adequate are liberal forms of parliamentary democracy to the challenge posed by this crisis? These are the questions pondered by the contributors to this volume. Exploration of the possibilities of democracy gives rise to certain common themes. These are the relation between ecological morality and political structures or procedures and the question of the structure of decision-making and distribution (...) of information in political systems. The idea of 'democracy without traditional boundaries' is discussed as a key both to environmentalism in an age of global ecology and to the revitalisation of democracy itself in a world of increasingly protean constituencies and mutable boundaries. (shrink)

Ecological psychology is one of the most influential theories of perception in the embodied, anti-representational, and situated cognitive sciences. However, radical enactivists claim that Gibsonians tend to describe ecological information and its ‘pick up’ in ways that make ecological psychology close to representational theories of perception and cognition. Motivated by worries about the tenability of classical views of informational content and its processing, these authors claim that ecological psychology needs to be “RECtified” so as to explicitly resist representational readings. In (...) this paper, we argue against this call for RECtification. To do so, we offer a detailed analysis of the notion of perceptual information and other related notions such as specificity and meaning, as they are presented in the specialized ecological literature. We defend that these notions, if properly understood, remain free of any representational commitment. Ecological psychology, we conclude, does not need to be RECtified. (shrink)

Cognitive ecology is the study of cognitive phenomena in context. In particular, it points to the web of mutual dependence among the elements of a cognitive ecosystem. At least three fields were taking a deeply ecological approach to cognition 30 years ago: Gibson’s ecological psychology, Bateson’s ecology of mind, and Soviet cultural-historical activity theory. The ideas developed in those projects have now found a place in modern views of embodied, situated, distributed cognition. As cognitive theory continues to shift (...) from units of analysis defined by inherent properties of the elements to units defined in terms of dynamic patterns of correlation across elements, the study of cognitive ecosystems will become an increasingly important part of cognitive science. (shrink)

Design for Values (DfV) philosophies are a series of design approaches that aim to incorporate human values into the early phases of technological design to direct innovation into beneficial outcomes. The difficulty and necessity of directing advantageous futures for transformative technologies through the application and adoption of value-based design approaches are apparent. However, questions of whose values to design are of critical importance. DfV philosophies typically aim to enrol the stakeholders who may be affected by the emergence of such a (...) technology. However, regardless of which design approach is adopted, all enrolled stakeholders are human ones who propose human values. Contemporary scholarship on metahumanisms, particularly those on posthumanism, have decentred the human from its traditionally privileged position among other forms of life. Arguments that the humanist position is not (and has never been) tenable are persuasive. As such, scholarship has begun to provide a more encompassing ontology for the investigation of nonhuman values. Given the potentially transformative nature of future technologies as relates to the earth and its many assemblages, it is clear that the value investigations of these design approaches fail to account for all relevant stakeholders (i.e., nonhuman animals). This paper has two primary objectives: (1) to argue for the cogency of a posthuman ethics in the design of technologies; and (2) to describe how existing DfV approaches can begin to envision principled and methodological ways of incorporating non-human values into design. To do this, the paper provides a rudimentary outline of what constitutes DfV approaches. It then takes up a unique design approach called Value Sensitive Design (VSD) as an illustrative example. Out of all the other DfV frameworks, VSD most clearly illustrates a principled approach to the integration of values in design. (shrink)

Arguing that ecological thinking can animate an epistemology capable of addressing feminist, multicultural, and other post-colonial concerns, this book critiques the instrumental rationality, hyperbolized autonomy, abstract individualism, and exploitation of people and places that western epistemologies of mastery have legitimated. It proposes a politics of epistemic location, sensitive to the interplay of particularity and diversity, and focused on responsible epistemic practices. Starting from an epistemological approach implicit in Rachel Carson’s scientific projects, the book draws, constructively and critically, on ecological theory (...) and practice, on (post-Quinean) naturalized epistemology, and on feminist and post-colonial theory. Analyzing extended examples from developmental psychology, from medicine and law, and from circumstances where vulnerability, credibility, and public trust are at issue, the argument addresses the constitutive part played by an instituted social imaginary in shaping and regulating human lives. The practices and examples discussed invoke the responsibility requirements central to this text’s larger purpose of imagining, crafting, articulating a creative, innovative, instituting social imaginary, committed to interrogating entrenched hierarchical social structures, en route to enacting principles of ideal cohabitation. (shrink)

Restoration ecology has recently emerged as a branch of scientific ecology that challenges many of the traditional tenets of environmentalism. Because the restoration of ecosystems, “applied ecology,” has the potential to advance theoretical understanding to such an extent that scientists can extensively manipulate the environment, it encourages increasingly active human participation within ecosystemsand could inhibit the preservation of areas from human influences. Despite the environmentally dangerous possibilities that this form of science and technology present, restoration offers an (...) attractive alternative for human interaction with the environment. I outline the primary claims that have been made for ecological restoration, examine inconsistencies with restorationists’ philosophical position,and propose a reassessment of the definition of restoration that may aid in the clarification and development of a system of environmental ethics that recognizes human relationships with the environment as potentially symbiotic and positive. (shrink)

In the current context of widespread environmental collapse, ecological grief—the sense of loss that arises from experiencing environmental destruction—has become a burgeoning topic of inquiry across psychology, geography, and anthropology. The central challenge in the study of ecological grief is that its theoretical foundations remain underdeveloped. Recent discussions in philosophy of emotions elucidate that a central element in this theoretical challenge is determining what the object of ecological grief is. In turn, our understanding of the object of ecological grief goes (...) hand in hand with our understanding of the nature of ecological grief. This paper develops a phenomenological analysis of cross‐cultural subjective reports that identifies crucial themes in the experience of ecological grief. This phenomenological analysis reveals the object of ecological grief as the loss of the life possibilities that are sustained by dwelling. The resulting view is that ecological grief corresponds to a crisis in dwelling—a disturbance in the very way we inhabit our home environment. (shrink)

Engages and extends the feminist philosopher Lorraine Code's groundbreaking work on epistemology and ethics.

Many share the conviction that wilderness should play a special role in any environmental ethic, even though the concept of wilderness remains contentious. Ever since it has been recognized that the traditional concept of a wilderness as a region “untrammeled” by human beings has a number of intractable difficulties, there has been no consensus on how we should understand wilderness, and most definitions or descriptions of wilderness remain negative (defining wilderness in terms of what it is not). I propose a (...) new ecological concept of wilderness, and show that this concept escapes the difficulties of the traditional concept and its recent alternatives, while being a useful ancillary to some of the leading contemporary theories in environmental ethics. (shrink)

Norman tries to link the ecological and constructivist approaches to the dorsal and ventral pathways of the visual system. Such a link implies that the distinction is not only one of approach, but that different issues are studied. Norman identifies these issues as perception and action. The influence of contextual illusions is critical for Norman's arguments. We point out that fast (dorsal) actions can be fooled by contextual illusions while (ventral) perceptual judgements can be insensitive to them. We conclude that (...) both approaches can, in principle, be used to study visual information processing in both pathways. (shrink)