Working within a framework of environmental philosophy and environmental ethics, this book describes and postulates alternative understandings of nature in Indian traditions of thought, particularly philosophy. The interest in alternative conceptualizations of nature has gained significance after many thinkers pointed out that attitudes to the environment are determined to a large extent by our presuppositions of nature. This book is particularly timely from that perspective. It begins with a brief description of the concept of nature and a history of the (...) idea of nature in Western thought. This provides readers with a context to the issues around the concept of nature in environmental philosophy, setting a foundation for further discussion about alternate conceptualizations of nature and their significance. In particular, the work covers a wide array of textual and non-textual sources to link and understand nature from classical Indian philosophical perspectives as well as popular understandings in Indian literary texts and cultural practices. Popular issues in environmental philosophy are discussed in detail, such as: What is ‘nature’ in Indian philosophy? How do people perceive nature through landscape and mythological and cultural narratives? In what ways is nature sacred in India? To make the discussion relevant to contemporary readers, the book includes a section on the ecological and ethical implications of some philosophical concepts and critical perspectives on alternate conceptualizations of nature. (shrink)

Historically, crises have spawned deliberate, widespread efforts to change a culture's worldviews. Anthropologists have characterized such efforts as “revitalization movements” and speculated that many of the world's religions, including Christianity, arose through revitalization. Some responses to the planet's environmental crisis share the characteristics of both a revitalization movement and an incipient religion. They call for a science‐based cosmology and an encompassing reverence for nature, and thus differ from responses to environmental decline offered by traditional religions. As environmental problems deepen, historical (...) precedent suggests that religious shifts in affected cultures may follow. (shrink)

Abstract.The Judeo-Christian, Enlightenment, and postmodernist paradigms have become intellectually and ethically exhausted. They are obviously failing to provide a conceptual framework conducive to eliminating some of humanity's worst scourges, including war and environmental destruction. This raises the issue of a successor, which necessitates a reexamination of first principles, starting with our concept of God. Pantheism, which is differentiated from panentheism, denies the existence of a transcendent, supernatural creator and instead asserts that God and the universe are one and the same. (...) Understood via intuition, modern cosmology, and other natural sciences, it offers an alternative worldview that posits the divine and sacred nature of the universe/creation. By asserting the fallacy of the creator/creation dichotomy and any attempts to anthropomorphize or personalize God, pantheism precludes hubris stemming from erroneous notions of divine favoritism. The links between Judeo-Christianity and the Enlightenment are traced and a case made that the latter has resulted in the equally erroneous and hubristic notion of human ascendancy to a Godlike status, with the concept of progress providing a secular version of the Christian belief in salvation. By reestablishing the natural sciences’metanarrative, even as it asserts the divinity of the material universe, pantheism simultaneously demotes postmodernism and reconciles science with religion. Pantheism provides a theological foundation for deep ecology and also stakes out a viable third position in relation to the ongoing dispute between advocates of intelligent design and the scientific establishment. (shrink)

In this paper we examine attempts to reframe the ethics of nature-society relations. We trace a postmodern turn which reflects a distrust of overarching moral codes and narratives and points towards a more nuanced understanding of how personal moral impulses are embedded within, and inter-subjectively constituted by, contextual configurations of self and other. We also trace an ethical turn which reflects a critique of anthropocentrism and points towards moves to non-anthropocentric frames in which the othernesses and ethics of difference are (...) shaped by an acknowledgement that human and non-human agency are relationally bound and assembled in networks and places. These turns suggest the need for a more sensitive 'ethical mindfulness' which is grounded in particular space-time contexts. Throughout the paper we draw on research we have conducted on the interconnections between trees and places, and in particular we describe three specific tree-places - an urban square, an urban cemetery and an orchard - which provide grounded contexts of encounter and potential for ethical mindedness. We conclude that notions of intrinsicality, otherness, enchantment and hybridity are helpful in configuring the search for grounded ethical mindfulness, both for and in nature. (shrink)