Environmentalism Without Nature? Steven Vogel’s post-natural environmental philosophy

Abstract

Over the last 30 years quite a few writers have attacked the concept of nature as either ambiguous, meaningless, nostalgic or conservative (Foucault, Rorty, Latour, Descola etc.). Common for them have been their basis in some variant of constructivism or postmodernism. The attacks have appeared simultaneously with a slowly growing concern over our precarious relation to the natural environment. From his background in Critical Theory philosopher Steven Vogel has reacted to the environmental challenge by developing a postnatural, radical constructivistic environmental philosophy. My paper demonstrates the incoherence of Vogel’s theory and argues that a viable environmental philosophy needs to rehabilitate the concept of nature.