The inaugural collection in an exciting new exchange between philosophers and geographers, this volume provides interdisciplinary approaches to the environment as space, place, and idea. Never before have philosophers and geographers approached each other's subjects in such a strong spirit of mutual understanding. The result is a concrete exploration of the human-nature relationship that embraces strong normative approaches to environmental problems.

According to Kuhn a new scientific discipline comes into existence when a group of scientists adopt a common paradigm within which to conduct research. The adoption of this paradigm senes to focus the attention of the group’s members on a common explanatory task-at-hand and leads them to adopt similar methods and aims, thus making possible the standard puzzle solving activities that allow normal science to advance rapidly. However, Kuhn argues, in pre-paradigm periods and during revolutionary phases, scientists do not engage (...) in such singleminded, puzzle-solving behavior, as the paradigm itself is put into question. Instead, during these periods, they become at least partially self-reflective in that they become interested in understanding the nature of their discipline and its relationships to other disciplines. In this paper, I argue that Philosophical Counseling is in a pre-paradigm period and is in need of a paradigm centered definition if it is to develop an identity and advance rapidly. In an Aristotelian mood, I seek this definition though an examination of the related fiends of psychotherapy and pastoral counseling. (shrink)

According to Aristotle, both urban planning and political philosophy originated in the work of one man, Hippodamus of Miletus. If Aristotle is right, then the study of Hippodamus's work should help us understand their history as interrelated fields. Unfortunately, it is difficult to determine with any degree of precision exactly what Hippodamus's contributions were to these two fields when the two fields are studied separately. In urban planning, Hippodamus was traditionally credited with having invented the ''grid pattern'' in which straight (...) streets intersect each other at right angles to form regular city blocks. However, as grid patterned cities have been discovered that were built before Hippodamus's birth, this traditional attribution must be false. In political philosophy, Hippodamus was credited with having written the first utopian ''constitution''. However, Aristotle's account of this constitution is so brief that it is difficult to determine what philosophical position lies behind it and, as that account makes clear, several of the laws governing Hippodamus's ideal city seem contradictory. In this paper, I argue that Hippodamus did significant work in both fields but that his intentions can only be seen clearly if his philosophical and architectural works are read together. This reading not only makes clear the unique contribution that Hippodamus made to both disciplines, but it shows how they were-and perhaps how they should be-related. (shrink)

The eighteenth century notion of the “picturesque” has been misunderstood by many contemporary environmental aestheticians. This has contributed both to amisunderstanding of the history of environmental aesthetics and, within the discipline, to a misunderstanding of English garden design. This essay contains a discussion of the term as it appears in environmental aesthetics literature and an examination of the history of the term as used in eighteenth-century garden design literature. This history is used to contest the account of the term as (...) used by contemporary environmental aestheticians and to develop a philosophically more interesting interpretation of it. (shrink)

By some of the top philosophers in the field of aesthetics as well as those in the architectural profession, essays in this book related architecture to other artforms such as photography. literature and painting. relates architecture to other artforms such as photography, literature and painting contains essays by some of the world's top philosophers works with a diversity of architectural concepts and issues philosophical discussions are generated by professionally designed architectural projects as well as vernacular ones extends the bounds of (...) architectural issues presently discussed by philosophers. (shrink)

This paper seeks to discover if urban planning has any 'internal values' which might help guide its practitioners and provide standards with which to judge their works, thereby providing for some disciplinary autonomy. After arguing that such values can best be discovered through an examination of the history of utopian urban planning, I examine one period in that history, the early Renaissance and, in particular, the work of Leon Battista Alberti. Against Susan Lang's thesis that Alberti's work was guided by (...) the fundamental value of beauty, I argue that Alberti was centrally concerned to design cities that would help their citizens develop civic virtue. Against Françoise Choay's thesis that Alberti was not a utopian, I argue that Alberti was a procedural utopian interested in advancing certain political goals. This analysis suggests that urban planning has an internal value structure which includes some specific political values. (shrink)

A multi-disciplinary study of the house that the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein built for his sister in Vienna between 1926 and 1928, this book weaves together ideas taken from a number of disciplines_sociology, political science, aesthetics, architecture, urban planning, and philosophy_to develop a complex, multifaceted interpretation of the purpose and design of the house, which, in turn, is used to ground a new interpretation of Wittgenstein's philosophical works emphasizing their mystical nature and practical purpose.

This essay examines the possibility of developing a more complete evolutionary aesthetics that can be used to appraise both natural landscapes and works of landscape architects. For the purpose of this essay, an “evolutionary aesthetics” is an aesthetic theory that is closely connected to Darwin’s theory of evolution. Two types of Darwinian evolutionary aesthetics seem possible; a theory of evolved tastes, such as that developed by Dennis Dutton, and an aesthetics of evolving nature based on Carlson’s positive aesthetics. After, exploring (...) both theories, I argue that, while the two positions approach aesthetics from different directions, they support similar aesthetic judgments concerning landscapes, and this suggests that the two positions might be incorporated into a broader theory of evolutionary aesthetics. That theory is briefly outlined and applied to both natural landscapes and parks. (shrink)

This paper outlines a normative/philosophical theory of evolutionary aesthetics, one that differs substantially from existing explanatory/psychological theories, such as Dutton’s. This evolutionary theory is based on Carlson’s scientific cognitivism, but differs in that it is based on evolutionary rather than ecological theory. After offering a short account of Carlson’s theory, I distinguish it from a normative evolutionary aesthetics. I then explore an historically important normative/philosophical theory of the aesthetics of nature that is consistent with Darwin’s theory of natural selection; namely, (...) the theory of the picturesque. Finally, after summarizing Nietzsche’s early theory of tragedy, I discuss how some of his ideas might be incorporated into an evolutionary aesthetics. (shrink)

Many environmental aestheticians—most prominently, Allen Carlson—have drawn a distinction between “arts-based” and “nature-based” approaches to the aesthetics of nature and have argued that the widespread practice of using arts-based theories and categories to understand the aesthetics of nature is a mistake. This practice, they argue, should be rejected and replaced by a practice in which an aesthetics of nature based on a clear, scientifically grounded understanding of the environment is used to appraise nature. In this paper, I will challenge important (...) parts of this argument through a discussion of an example often used by these environmental aestheticians in developing their arguments: namely, landscape.. (shrink)

Ecotourism has been defined in a number of possibly incompatible ways, such as travel to especially wonderful natural sites, as aform of educational travel, and as sustainable tourism. These various understandings of ecotourism can be used to ground a number of different kinds of natural area policies. In particular they can ground a number of policies concerning the management of the many National Parks in the United States. In this paper, in order to assess these policies, I distinguish several different (...) understandings of “ecotourism” and discuss the kinds of park management programs that might be based on them. In the course of this discussion, I examine the history of tourism in Europe in order to develop other notions of ecotourism, including two based on the idea of pilgrimage. To clarify this last idea of ecotourism, I examine religious pilgrimage and several ideas of nature taken from the Romantic Movement in Europe and the Transcendentalist movement in the United States, as seen in the work of Emerson, Thoreau, Muir, and Ansel Adams. (shrink)

Discussions of green design and sustainable architecture have become common in the architectural profession, but not in philosophy. This is unfortunate, as philosophers could make important contributions to this discussion, given that these terms rife with ambiguities and that the relationships between these ideas and the traditional Vitruvian values of architecture (beauty, structure, and utility) are unclear. In a recent article, Tom Spector addresses some of these issues to assess whether the notion of sustainability could underpin an entire design philosophy. (...) He concludes that it cannot. I argue that Spector’s argumentsare flawed. After discussing the history of green design, I connect a number of theories in the new field of environmental aesthetics to the question of architectural aesthetics to show how sustainability might inform architecture. (shrink)

This paper argues against evolutionary accounts of aesthetics by defending the idea that our fundamental aesthetic categories have undergone great changes in the last two millennia, in particular, during an “artistic revolution” that lasted from 1680 to 1830. This revolution was made possible by the development of a number of technologies of art that created a separate cultural space for this new invention. The attempt to extend this revolution to include the aesthetic appreciation of the natural environment is aided by (...) a new set of technologies that help make an aesthetic object out of natural environments. This even morerecent development is further evidence against an evolutionary explanation of art. (shrink)

Beginning with Ronald Hepburn’s path-breaking essay, “Contemporary Aesthetics and the Neglect of Natural Beauty,” which helped establish the modern discipline of environmental aesthetics, philosophers have provided sketches of what, after Hegel, might be called “philosophical histories of the aesthetics of nature.” These histories are remarkably similar and can easily be blended together to create a “received history” of the discipline. This history has subtly influenced work in the field. Unfortunately, it is not completely accurate and, as a result, has had (...) a misleading effect. A more accurate and expanded alternative history calls into question the received history’s view both on the origins of the field in arts-based aesthetic theories and on the nature and value of the aesthetic categories, “the picturesque” and “the sublime.” These categories were not borrowed from philosophy of art and inappropriately applied to nature, but instead were developed to appraise landscapes, which unlike natural objects could only rarely be judged beautiful since they are almost never symmetrical or ordered. (shrink)

Paden finds Rawls's new theory inadequate in its response to communitarian criticisms advocating a different theory of good than that of liberal societies. Paden goes back to "A Theory of Justice" to state that all societies seek one good - the protection of their just institutions.

The practice of preserving various parts of urban landscapes for historical purposes raises a variety of normative, metaphysical, and conceptual questions that invite philosophical analysis. The normative questions are particularly interesting. Why should we preserve historical sites? What sites are worth preserving? How should they be preserved and interpreted?1 In this essay, I apply Nietzsche’s theories of history and culture as found in the first two Untimely Meditations to provide a fresh critical framework to some normative questions raised by a (...) particularly difficult instance of historical preservation; namely, the preservation of Confederate monuments. This framework allows me to argue that some monuments should be removed from their prominent public sites, while others should be retained and reinterpreted. (shrink)

Environmental ethics has been strongly influenced by biological ideas. This essay traces a number of these influences. Unfortunately, environmental ethicists have tended to produce moral theories on a grand scale. This tendency is criticized. It is argued that environmental ethicists should allow the ecological conception of the complexity of biological communities to influence their conception of the moral community. If this were to happen, it is argued, they would have to turn away from grand theories to 'theories of the middle (...) range' while adopting a more 'empirical' approach to moral philosophy. (shrink)

Communitarians have offered a number of arguments against liberalism that connect liberalism to consumerism. In this paper, I examine an argument to this effect developed by Michael Sandel. I argue that Sandel’s argument fails to undenmne liberalism, but that it does demonstrate that many contemporary liberals have placed too great an emphasis on the principle of political neutrality. I argue that liberalism, properly understood, requires both limited neutrality and an emphasis on democratic deliberation. If this is the case, then Sandel’s (...) argument misses its target. However, it does point out how contemporary liberalism needs to be reformed. By emphasizing more local democratic control over the economy, liberalism would not only become more theoretically consistent, but it would distance itself from consumerism. (shrink)

Unfortunately, as the Chinese might say, we live in very interesting times. Recent technological developments have had the effect of shrinking the world, and, although they have not created the “global village” foreseen by Marshall McLuhan, they have caused major changes in the more familiar “villages” of the past—the family, the community, and the nation—while calling into question the moralities and moral ideals which have found their natural homes within those older “villages.” One of those older moral ideals is that (...) of patriotism. In the lead essay in this volume, Martha Nussbaum argues against this ideal and for another equally old ideal, the stoic ideal of the cosmopolitan, the person whose allegiance is to the worldwide community of human beings. Nussbaum’s essay originally appeared in Boston Review, along with twenty-nine replies. Eleven of those replies, some substantially reworked, appear in this volume, together with five new essays and a final response by Nussbaum. Nussbaum’s respondents span the political spectrum and include such luminaries as Sissela Bok, Richard Falk, Amy Gutmann, Gertrude Himmelfarb, Elaine Scarry, Amartya Sen, and Charles Taylor. Together these essays raise more questions than they answer, reveal hidden complexities in seemingly simple issues, and force the reader to see the world from a variety of sometimes uncomfortable perspectives. In short, they make up a very interesting and very good philosophical text. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that there is no essential inconsistency between a well-constructed free trade policy and environmental sound development. From an examination of the concept of “free trade,” I argue that “free trade” must mean “environmentally sustainable trade.” The argument is conceptual in nature. I argue that free trade must mean trade free of subsidies in which the price of a good fairly reflects the costs of its production. I then argue that environmentally unsustainable commodity trade is in (...) fact “subsidized.” Therefore, the international regulation of this trade would be consistent with the goal of free trade. Moreover, such regulation could promote both environmental conservation and the long-run interest of developing countries. However, ethical and practical considerations demand that these regulations must be structured so that they do not have a negative short-term economic impact on developing countries. A mechanism to implement this policy is suggested. (shrink)

Communitarians have argued that liberalism somehow causes or leads to a consumer society. Moreover, they have argued that consumer society is somehow morally suspect. Given the connection between liberalism and consumerism, they have argued that the moral problems they have found in consumer society give reason to oppose liberalism. In this paper, after defining “consumerism” and “liberalism,” I examine the various communitarian arguments against consumerism, and the various arguments that seek to connect liberalism to consumerism. I argue that only one (...) of these arguments has any hope of establishing this connection. (shrink)