Abstract

It is difficult to answer the question posed in the title. Aesthetics that makes use of ecological inspirations is in the process of coming to be; its final version will require a reworking of traditional philosophy and the aesthetics of nature. I present two examples of such work in current aesthetics; the first is found in American circles, the second in the German tradition: 1. Arnold Berleant’s project of environmental aesthetics, arising from a criticism of Kant’s concept of the disinterestedness of aesthetic experience and tending toward a model of engaged aesthetics; 2. Gernot Böhm’s proposal of a new philosophy and aesthetics of nature. I criticize both proposals, pointing to difficulties in reconciling the traditional understanding of such concepts as nature, aesthetics, and experience with the requirements of an ecological worldview that grants man a place in the world that differs from that provided him by Cartesian thought