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.

Artworks are attentional engines. They are artifacts intentionally designed to direct attention to what we might call their artistically salient features. The artistically salient features of a work are those aspects of their formal-compositional structure that carry information about what they express, their point, purpose, or meaning. These aspects of a work reflect the range of compositional strategies and choices an artist has employed to produce their work. Critically, artists deploy exogenous and endogenous perceptual strategies tailored to direct attention and (...) reveal what they mean to express. Painters, for instance, manipulate the perceptual salience of different areas of the canvas to directly engage perceptual systems, e.g. manipulating contrasts in the tonal properties, hue value, or scale of spatial frequency information. However, shared art critical knowledge can also be exploited to indirectly engage endogenous attentional processes, shape perception, and guide a consumer’s understanding of what is expressed in a work. The range of exogenous and endogenous perceptual strategies an artist employs shape what an artifact affords a consumer as an artwork. Access to these affordances depends upon the structure of the works, the structure of perceptual systems, and an understanding of the broad range of art critical and cultural practices that define the artworld for a community at a time. In this chapter I will employ a diagnostic recognition framework and a biased competition theory of selective attention to develop a model for understanding the way artists exploit exogenous and endogenous perceptual strategies in their works and map the complex environment of an artwork. (shrink)

유교는 일찍이 지구 생태계가 맞이하고 있는 환경 위기와 생명의 대멸종을 극복할 수 있는 사상 자원으로 주목을 받고 있다. 이런 맥락에서 유교사상 중 ‘만물일체(萬物一體)’설은 인간 중심주의와 대척 지점에 서있는 사상으로 간주되고 있다. 모든 존재가 하나의 덩어리로 이어져있기 때문에 한 생명체의 고통은 공감되는 특성을 가지고 있다. 이러한 공감은 지구 생태계에 대해 인간 중심주의(anthropocentrism)가 관철하는 상황과 다른 대응과 책임을 요구한다. 주렴계의 ‘창전초부제’ 고사는 만물일체를 구현하고 있는 상징적 사건으로 주목할 만하다.BR 주렴계의 ‘창전초불제’ 내용은 아주 간단하다. 그럼에도 철학과 미학의 역사에 던진 영향은 적지 않다. 정명도도 (...) 유사한 체험을 하며 주석을 달았고 주희는 공자의 ‘무우귀영(舞雩歸詠)’과 주렴계의 ‘창전초부제’를 독서의 즐거움을 결합시켰다. 왕양명은 아예 “창전초부제 고사에 대한 최고의 주석을 달려고 노력했다. 창전초부제 고사는 사람이 세계를 이해하는 조그만 창을 넘어 형이상학적 체험이자 시적 정취이자 심미적 쾌감을 대변하는 큰 사건으로 보았기 때문이다. 이렇게 보면 창전초부제 고사는 ‘연비어약(鳶飛魚躍)’과 마찬가지로 세계를 인간중심이 아니라 인간과 자연을 동류이자 동기로 바라보는 새로운 관점을 제시한다고 할 수 있다. (shrink)

Debates in ecological social theory are characterised by dualisms of nature and society. The author proposes the notion of ‘ecological aporias’ to account for these dualisms, focusing on three landmark examples of ecological thought over the past four decades from Niklas Luhmann, Bruno Latour and Jason W. Moore. He shows the persistence in this work of paradoxes and intractable contradictions revolving around the nature/society dualism. Rather than trying to dissolve these ecological aporias, he draws on (...) recent work in eco-deconstruction to suggest that the ecological is itself an aporetic category and that this enables a new perspective for political ecology in an age of climate crisis. Rejecting Latour’s identification of political ecology with the politics of dwelling, he argues that climate change demands we recognise forms of life irreducible to the ontological security on which the concept of the ecological has long been based. (shrink)

My objective in this article is to consider the implications of Bernard Stiegler’s theory of the neganthropocene for the politics of knowledge and education. Stiegler sets out his theory of...

Nikolai Alekseevich Umov , a professor at Moscow and New Russian universities, Russia's first theoretical physicist and a mathematical philosopher, according to N. E. Zhukovskii's definition, developed a genuinely ecological philosophy, which is usually included in the philosophy of Russian cosmism. He made the first global forecast1 that took into account the finiteness of resources on earth, population growth, and food reserves.

“Every practice is a mode of thought, already in the act. To dance: a thinking in movement. To paint: a thinking through color. To perceive in the everyday: a thinking of the world’s varied ways of affording itself.” —from _Thought in the Act _Combining philosophy and aesthetics, _Thought in the Act_ is a unique exploration of creative practice as a form of thinking. Challenging the common opposition between the conceptual and the aesthetic, Erin Manning and Brian Massumi “think through” (...) a wide range of creative practices in the process of their making, revealing how thinking and artfulness are intimately, creatively, and inseparably intertwined. They rediscover this intertwining at the heart of everyday perception and investigate its potential for new forms of activism at the crossroads of politics and art. Emerging from active collaborations, the book analyzes the experiential work of the architects and conceptual artists Arakawa and Gins, the improvisational choreographic techniques of William Forsythe, the recent painting practice of Bracha Ettinger, as well as autistic writers’ self-descriptions of their perceptual world and the experimental event making of the SenseLab collective. Drawing from the idiosyncratic vocabularies of each creative practice, and building on the vocabulary of process philosophy, the book reactivates rather than merely describes the artistic processes it examines. The result is a thinking-with and a writing-in-collaboration-with these processes and a demonstration of how philosophy co-composes with the act in the making. _Thought in the Act_ enacts a collaborative mode of thinking in the act at the intersection of art, philosophy, and politics. (shrink)

This book provides a conceptual basis for recognizing the classroom as an ecology of linguistic and cultural patterns that should be taken into account as part of the teacher's professional decision making. It argues that the orchestration of classroom behaviour cannot be separated from the mental ecology of metaphor and thought patterns that reflect the student's primary culture. Chapters discuss the metaphorical nature of language and thought, primary socilization, nonverbal communication, framing and social control, the classroom as an (...) ecology of power, culturally responsive supervision, and educating teachers for the 21st century - all from a cultural and linguistic point of view. (shrink)

Not man as the king of creation, but rather as the being who is in intimate contact with the profound life of all forms or all types of beings, who is responsible for even the stars and animal life, and who ceaselessly plugs an organ-machine into an energy-machine, a tree into his body, a breast into his mouth, the sun into his asshole: the eternal custodian of the machines of the universe. Deleuze and Guattari, Anti-Oedipus 4.

In a time imbued with civilisation crisis, José Manuel Naredo's work is of particular relevance. Naredo, one of the most prestigious economists in Spain and a pioneer of ecological economics, first published his most popular book ( La economía en evolución. Historia y perspectivas de las categorías básicas del pensamiento económico) in 1987. This article reviews its most recent and updated version released in 2015. Beyond a brilliant criticism of neoclassical economics, he discusses the underlying ideology and implications of (...) the notion of economic system uncritically endorsed by most schools of economic thought. Transcending the usual dichotomy between ‘orthodox’ and ‘heterodox’ economics, Naredo calls for an economic transition built on the integration of different kinds of scientific knowledge as well as other intuitive, metaphysical and ethical fields in favour of a truly inclusive economics. This is, he warns us, a sine qua non for a socioecological transformation to flourish. (shrink)

Christianity has contributed to the development of a strong anthropocentric ethic. Christian theologians have developed new ways of thinking about the place of humans in nature, often by focussing on the Godhumanity relationship. Thinking about the third component of the metaphysical trinity, nature, has largely remained unchanged. Christian theology needs to make an ontological detour or tour de force to overcome lingering materialist and dualist conceptions of nature, and to embrace key aspects of process thought, most notably panexperientialism. This (...) will pave the way for the required weak anthropocentric ethic. (shrink)

This paper aims to introduce the German Romantic poet Novalis into the discussion of the modern ecological crisis. In particular we examine Novalis' unique philosophy of nature as a You in which he deals with both of the two aspects of the relationship between humans and nature: their original identity as well as the distinction between them. We analyse the way in which Novalis understood the relationship between nature and humankind dynamically, and show the significance of his concept of (...) poetry for this question. This concept is analysed and described in respect to its principal features: creativity and love. The former is regarded by Novalis as a general capacity of humans as well as an expression of nature itself. Together with love it forms the base for a possible harmonious relationship between humans and nature. We furthermore interpret Novalis' economic thought against the general background of his philosophy of nature and his understanding of humankind. Novalis recognises the crucial role economic action plays in the relationship between nature and humankind and he offers some important insights into this issue. Finally, we discuss the relevance of Novalis' concept of nature as a You for environmental philosophy. By comparison with other concepts of nature in the modern environmental debate, we show how Novalis' thought offers a new perspective on the human–nature relationship and thus fruitful stimulation for today's environmental philosophy. (shrink)

Niklas Luhmann is widely recognized as one of the most original thinkers in the social sciences today. This major new work further develops the theories of the author by offering a challenging analysis of the relationship between society and the environment. Luhmann extends the concept of "ecology" to refer to any analysis that looks at connections between social systems and the surrounding environment. He traces the development of the notion of "environment" from the medieval idea--which encompasses both human and natural (...) systems--to our modern definition, which separates social systems from the external environment. In Luhmann's thought, human beings form part of the environment, while social systems consist only of communications. Utilizing this distinctive theoretical perspective, Luhmann presents a comprehensive catalog of society's reactions to environmental problems. He investigates the spheres of the economy, law, science, politics, religion, and education to show how these areas relate to environmental issues. Ecological Communication is an important work that critically examines claims central to our society--claims to modernity and rationality. It will be of great importance to scholars and students in sociology, political science, philosophy, anthropology, and law. (shrink)

To overcome “digital reductionism,” a new kind of mechanical view on human beings, fundamental informatics provides some critical viewpoints. It regards information as “meaning” generated in living things which do not exist alone but are parts of ecological system. On the other hand, V. E. Frankl proposed two dimensions of humans: homo sapiens and homo patiens. The latter is the essential aspect of humans whose essence is “compassion,” while the former is the nature like a mechanical machine. As features (...) of living things, unrestricted ability of interpretation as well as inseparable relationships between others underlies both in Frankl’s thought and fundamental informatics. This viewpoint can be applied to the concept of “information literacy.”. (shrink)

We argue that moral judgment studies currently conducted utilizing virtual reality (VR) devices must confront a dilemma due to how virtual environments are designed and how those environments are experienced. We begin by first describing the contexts present in paradigmatic cases of naturalistic moral judgments. We then compare these contexts to current traditional (vignette-based) and VR-based moral judgment research. We show that, contra to paradigmatic cases, vignette-based and VR-based moral judgment research often fails to accurately model the situational features of (...) paradigmatic moral judgments. In particular, we compare and contrast six recent VR studies to support our view that only simulations high in context-realism and perspectival-fidelity can produce ‘virtually real experiences.’ After analyzing the constituents of a virtually-real experience, we go on to propose guidelines for the creation of VR studies. These guidelines serve two purposes. First, we aim to increase the ecological validity of such studies in order to advance our understanding of moral judgments. Second, we believe that such guidelines should inform how Institutional Review Boards assess VR research. We show that our guidelines are urgently needed given the current lax review standards in place. (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)

Evolutionary, ecological and ethical studies are, at the same time, specific scientific disciplines and, from an historical point of view, structurally linked domains of research. In a context of environmental crisis, the need is increasingly emerging for a connecting epistemological framework able to express a common or convergent tendency of thought and practice aimed at building, among other things, an environmental policy management respectful of the planet’s biodiversity and its evolutionary potential.

The eco-environmental problems have become a hot topic of global concern today. Many scholars seek intellectual resources from traditional cultures to solve these problems. This article tries to extract the rich ecological thoughts from the text of Laozi. According to Laozi, Tao is ‘the mother of all beneath Heaven’, that is, the whole universe, including man and nature, evolve from Tao. This indicates the primary harmony of man and nature. However, man mistakenly regards himself as the lord of nature, (...) and uses his force and methods of science and technology to enslave nature, causing the current ecological crisis. The way to resolve the crisis is pointed out in the following statement: ‘Man should imitate Earth, Earth should imitate Heaven, Heaven should imitate Tao, and Tao is being what it is’. Laozi advocates man to imitate nature, leading a life of ‘having no self’, ‘wu wei’ or ‘desiring no-desire’. This is the Tao-centred way of living, which brings about a transformation in human existence. Contribution: This article argues that the current ecological crisis is caused by mankind’s mistaken belief that they are the masters of nature. The philosophical ideas of Laozi provide a way to resolve the crisis, advocating that humans should imitate nature and adopt a Tao-centred way of living. This way of living brings about a transformation in human existence. The article provides a philosophical perspective on how to solve contemporary environmental problems. (shrink)

Oaks exemplify problems with the reproductive species concept which motivate a reconsideration of the use and nature of species. Ecology is important in the reconsideration. The species level is usually overemphasized in evolutionary thought; selection acts on phenotypes and any mutualistic units. Standard definitions tend to inhibit free conceptual progress. Multispecies, sets of broadly sympatric species that exchange genes, may occur among animals as well as plants and may conceivably bridge kingdoms. This phenomenon can be adaptively important. There may (...) be taxa without species. The degree of modality of adaptive zones can be investigated empirically. (shrink)

This book examines the relationship between environmental and democratic thought and the apparent compatibility of ecology and democracy. Although environmental politics is quite rightly seen as a progressive force, it has also featured a strand of extreme right "eco-authoritarianism" and its proponents have sometimes developed controversial positions on such issues as population policy. There have also been a number of situations where radical environmental activists have broken the laws of democratic societies in pursuit of ecological objectives and the (...) book examines this in a number of case studies on biotechnology, genetic engineering and biodiversity. This is a significant contribution to the literature on environmental politics, ecological thought and democracy. (shrink)