Ecological Philosophy Research Articles

RE: From Prefix to Paradigm

This article is a translated chapter from a large study of the philosophy of ecology and biology. It looks at the vast array of reiterative processes in nature and culture and argues that continuous recursion is the core activity that sustains living processes at all levels. Therefore, the prefix “re,” which is central to the concepts of repetition, renewal, reinforcement, regeneration, reorganization, recursion, and religion, is a radical concept that should be considered at the paradigmatic level. The author shows that by working “revolutions into its revolutions” the process of RE complexly unifies and intermixes the past and future in order to generate the creative pulse of evolution.

Wolf Stories

* Jickling, Faculty of Education, Lakehead University, 955 Oliver Road, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada P7B 5E1 (bob.jicklin@lakeheadu.ca); Paquet, Faculty of Environmental Design, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4 (ppaquet@sasktel.net). Jickling, a long-time Yukon resident, taught environmental ethics and environmental education at Yukon College for many years. He now divides his time between his home in Whitehorse, Yukon and Thunder Bay, Ontario where he recently accepted a faculty position at Lakehead University. His research interests include philosophy of education—particularly conceptual analyses of key concepts, environmental ethics, relationships between ethics and education, and relationships between ethics and epistemology. He is also the founding editor of the Canadian Journal of Environmental Education. Paquet is a conservation biologist specializing in large carnivores living in human dominated systems. He has written extensively about carnivore ecology and coexistence of humans and carnivores. Paquet has degrees in philosophy of science, wildlife biology, zoology, and behavioral ecology. Wolf stories, including the systematic and government-sponsored killing of Yukon wolves, provide a context for the examination of assumptions about Western epistemology, and particularly science, in light of the “ethics-based epistemology” presented by Jim Cheney and Anthony Weston, with implications for research, responsibility, and animal welfare. Working from a premise of universal consideration, and minding the ethical basis of knowledge claims, enables richer conceptions of environmental ethics and creates new possibilities for animal welfare and managing for wildlife.

Expropriating Nature: The Decoding of Deep Ecology

AbstractIn this essay, I suggest that Nina Witoszek's semiotic dismantling of Arne Næss' philosophy of deep ecology is more than just an effort to situate Næss within the tradition of his native culture. Her sociological method, perhaps unwittingly, is hostile to the phenomenological possibility of what Næss calls "spontaneous experience". Because the "decoding" of deep ecology takes place in the context of a sign-functional nexus, deep ecology's most valuable asset, the possibility for intimate experience and identification with nature, becomes expropriated within the system of signs. In other words, the cerebral and theoretical force of semiotic analysis may block access to the profound understanding of nature to which Næss' philosophy is dedicated.

The Culture of Extinction: Toward a Philosophy of Deep Ecology. By Frederic L Bender. Humanity Books. Amherst (New York): Prometheus Books. $65.00. 488 p; ill.; index. ISBN: 1–59102–055–7. 2003.

Previous articleNext article No AccessEnvironmental SciencesThe Culture of Extinction: Toward a Philosophy of Deep Ecology. By Frederic L Bender. Humanity Books. Amherst (New York): Prometheus Books. $65.00. 488 p; ill.; index. ISBN: 1–59102–055–7. 2003.John Cairns, Jr.John Cairns, Jr.Environmental Biology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia Search for more articles by this author Environmental Biology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VirginiaPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Quarterly Review of Biology Volume 79, Number 3September 2004 Published in association with Stony Brook University Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/425820 Views: 49Total views on this site PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

The science of the struggle for existence: on the foundations of ecology

This book is a sustained examination of issues in the philosophy of ecology that have been a source of controversy since the emergence of ecology as an explicit scientific discipline. The controversies revolve around the idea of a balance of nature, the possibility of general ecological knowledge and the role of model-building in ecology. The Science of the Struggle for Existence is also a detailed treatment of these issues that incorporates both a comprehensive investigation of the relevant ecological literature and the development of an explicit theoretical framework in the philosophy of science. It addresses issues in the philosophy of ecology that are of particular importance for the deployment of ecology in the solution of environmental problems. It will have a cross-disciplinary appeal and will interest students and professionals in science, the philosophy of science, and environmental studies as well as policy-makers.

Toward a more expansive conception of ecological science

There are two competing conceptions of the nature and domain of ecological science in the popular and academic literature, an orthodox conception and a more expansive conception. The orthodox conception conceives ecology as a natural biological science distinct from the human social sciences. The more expansive conception views ecology as a science whose domain properly spans both the natural and social sciences. On the more expansive conception, non-traditional ecological disciplines such as “ecological psychology”, “ecological anthropology” and “ecological economics” may legitimately be regarded as sub-disciplines of ecology, and the practitioners of such disciplines as ecologists. The orthodox-expansionist issue is significant both for the practice of ecology and for the self-identity of the philosophy of ecology. I argue in favour of the expansionist conception of ecology on general conceptual grounds, and by developing the case for one particular non-traditional ecological discipline, ecological psychology.

Lao-Zhuang and Heidegger on Nature and Technology

Journal of Chinese PhilosophyVolume 30, Issue 1 p. 19-38 Lao-Zhuang and Heidegger on Nature and Technology Graham Parkes, Corresponding Author Graham Parkes University of Hawaii Honolulu, HawaiiGRAHAM PARKES, professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Hawaii at Manoa. Specialties: Comparative philosophy, philosophy of ecology, philosophy of film. E-mail: [email protected]Search for more papers by this author Graham Parkes, Corresponding Author Graham Parkes University of Hawaii Honolulu, HawaiiGRAHAM PARKES, professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Hawaii at Manoa. Specialties: Comparative philosophy, philosophy of ecology, philosophy of film. E-mail: [email protected]Search for more papers by this author First published: 11 March 2003 https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-6253.00104Citations: 5Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Citing Literature Volume30, Issue1March 2003Pages 19-38 RelatedInformation

An exercise in the natural philosophy of ecology

Damming of rivers is one of the main human interferences in natural ecosystems. With the purpose to analyze food webs in 30 reservoirs of the state of Paraná, southern Brazil, we built standardized models (same number of compartments) for each reservoir in the software Ecopath. We tested the existence of an association among eight attributes described in Odum's theory (estimated by the models built in Ecopath and summarized in a Principal Component Analysis—PCA) and some characteristics of the reservoirs, such as age and area. Compartments were categorized in two groups: ‘non-fish’ (phytoplankton, periphyton, rotifers, copepods, cladocerans, bacteria, protozoans, benthos and detritus) and ‘fish’ (omnivorous, insectivorous, piscivorous, herbivorous, detritivorous and invertivorous). To balance the models, diet (main food items) and biomass of some groups (especially periphyton) were modified to get values of ecotrophic efficiency lower than one. We found that Axis 1 of the PCA (which represented 37.1% of the variability of the original data matrix) was significantly correlated with three categories from Odum's theory: community energetics, homeostasis and structure. Axis 2 (20.2%) was not correlated with the attributes, whereas axis 3 (15.6%) was significantly correlated with nutrient cycling and life history. Reservoir age was negatively correlated with axis 1; hence, older reservoirs seemed to be more developed (or senesced) than younger ones. Thus, it is possible to conclude that maturity (or senescence) is an inherent characteristic of reservoir aging, regardless of human interference, reservoir area or number of species. Therefore, the results presented here are additional evidence of the importance to improve Odum's central theory of ecosystem development. In spite of some limitations, we believe that the Ecopath model applied to these reservoirs is a feasible tool for interdisciplinary environmental studies.

GOOD? BETTER? BEST?

Organisms are obviously adapted, but in what ways are they optimal, and why does it matter? These are complex questions that have been debated from various points of view for years, so I approached this collection of essays with a mixture of hope and dread. The twelve chapters differ greatly in focus and style; collectively they touch on issues and facts from a wide range of fields including philosophy and history of science, phylogenetics, population genetics, game theory, physiology, behavior, and ecology; they cohere as a group only in their general relationship to the theme of the volume, and they reach no consensus. This unruliness is a virtue, in my opinion, because there are no simple answers to the central questions. The chapters frequently illuminate each other (if obliquely), and, although strong opinions are often expressed, each makes an able, honest, and thoughtful attempt to sort out some aspects of the roles played by concepts of adaptation and optimality in biological research. I found the book very stimulating. It will undoubtedly anchor the reading lists of many graduate seminar courses over the next few years. However, there are holes that will need to be filled from other sources, and I recommend reading the chapters in an order almost reverse that in which they appear in the volume. The penultimate chapter by Peter Godfrey-Smith (‘‘Three kinds of adaptationism’’) argues that the debates have raged so long and hot in part because three distinct issues have been lumped together under the term ‘‘adaptationism’’: the first is empirical adaptationism (the claim that selection in fact tends to dominate other evolutionary processes, at least where significant fitness differences are at stake); the second is explanatory adaptationism (the claim that apparent organismal design and fit to environment are evolutionary biology’s central problem and therefore that natural selection and adaptation are the central answer); and the third is methodological adaptationism (the claim that useful hypotheses are often discovered by asking how selection might, in principle, optimize some trait of interest). Each of these ‘‘kinds’’ or ‘‘dimensions’’ of adaptationism is logically independent of the other two, and each can be qualified or weakened in various ways, so there are many different ‘‘adaptationist’’ positions that individual biologists might (and do) represent. For example, it is possible and logically consistent to be (1) very optimistic about the near optimality of most ecologically important traits in real organisms (1 empirical adaptationism) and (2) zealously committed to the primacy

Biosemiotics and the problem of intrinsic value of nature

This article poses the hypothesis that the problem of the intrinsic value of nature that stems from the work of G. E. Moore and is widely discussed in environmental philosophy, bas a parallel in a contemporary discussion in semiotics on the existence of semiosis in nature. From a semiotic point of view. value can be defined as an intentional dimension of sign. This is concordant with a biological interpretation of value that relates to biological needs. Thus. a semiotic approach in biology may provide a useful tool for further analysis of the intrinsic value problem in the biological realm. From an ecosemiotic point of view, the problem is also related to the concepts of bioart and ecoart. Ecoart viz environmental art is that which encompasses the human ambience, e.g., landscape or its components. Bioart call be defined as the art whose material ("clay") is a living body, living matter or communication of organisms (which may include, e.g., genetic engineering). It is concluded that the acceptance of biosemiotic view has implications for a large area of ecological philosophy.

Dog stars and dog souls: The lives of dogs in Triomf by Marlene van Niekerk and Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee

Summary This essay begins with a brief overview of current debates on animals and dualism from Mary Midgley's “practical” ethics to Val Plumwood's ecological philosophy. The narratives which I consider, Triomf ([1994]1999) by Marlene van Niekerk and Disgrace ([1999]2000) by J.M. Coetzee, both posit some continuum between humans and dogs. They locate the dogs culturally and historically and represent them as subjects capable, within heterarchical relationships, of complex interactions with humans. The novels also pose ontological questions about being human in relation to other animals, as well as engaging with metaphysical and spiritual questions. Both Van Niekerk and Coetzee, I argue, make profound ecological statements about the dualisms of racism, speciesism and their reticulations.

Beneath the Surface: Critical Essays in the Philosophy of Deep Ecology. Edited by Eric Katz, Andrew Light, and David Rothenberg. Cambridge, MA & London, UK: The MIT Press (2000). Reviewed by J. Stan Rowe

Beneath the Surface: Critical Essays in the Philosophy of Deep Ecology. Edited by Eric Katz, Andrew Light, and David Rothenberg. Cambridge, MA & London, UK: The MIT Press (2000). Reviewed by J. Stan Rowe

Situatedness and Problematic Boundaries: Conceptualizing Life's Complex Ecological Context

A key challenge in conceptualizing ecological complexity is to allow simultaneously for particularity, contingency, and structure, and for such structure to be internally differentiated,dynamically tied to its context, and subject torestructuring. Because all organisms live insuch dynamic ecological circumstances, philosophy of ecology could become the leading site for addressing difficult conceptual questions concerning the situatedness or positionality of organisms –humans included – in their changing and intersecting worlds.

Dams and dissent: India's first modern environmental activist and his critique of the DVC project

The inner tensions plaguing the political philosophy of ecology in India were captured in the life and times of Kapil Bhattacharjee, South Asia's first modern environmental activist. In the 1950s he courageously fought against a highly popular project, the Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC), a huge multipurpose river valley project that included a number of dams, power stations and a barrage. It was being then vended as the harbinger of unforeseen prosperity in Eastern India. As a result, some even denounced Bhattacharjee as a traitor, particularly for opposing the Farakka barrage, which he considered as a fraud on the Indian public. The ambivalence towards him in his society was matched by his own ambivalence. Here was a person who defiantly initiated, virtually single-handedly, environmental activism as we know it in this part of the world. Yet, in other respects he showed remarkable self-censorship. Brought up in the heady atmosphere of the easy rationalism of the inter-war years and in the cold war atmosphere immediately after World War II, Bhattacharjee came close to admitting — and yet shield away from actually doing so — that rivers were not merely economic resources, but also civilisational boons. The sanctity of a river, particularly its right to be itself, was never acceptable to him, except as a popular belief. And though in later life he also became a distinguished human rights activist, he never was adequately sensitive to the way some of the tribes of India bore the major brunt of the DVC. The uprooting and destitution imposed on them do not figure at all in his writings on the subject. One possible explanation of these anomalies is in Bhattacharjee's basic commitment to the urban-industrial vision and to a theory of modern-science-based progress. Between them, they ensured that while he sometimes wrote movingly about traditional knowledge systems dealing with rivers and about the dangers of large-scale intervention in nature, saving the city of Calcutta and India's industrial base always had priority in his philosophy of environmentalism.

Pliestocenic Public Administration: the Import of Paul Shepard’s Ecological Philosophy for Public Administration

This article examines the challenges of developing an ecocentric public administration through an exploration of the ecological philosophy of Paul Shepard. His philosophy is an example of the ‘deep ecology’ perspective; in Shepard’s view modern public administration has played no small part in damaging our ecological relations with the rest of nature. To repair that damage and develop an ecocentric public administration, we would need to examine and act on the implications of our existence as one species among many, develop an ecologically attuned model of the good society, and implement the new regimes based on that model in ecologically intelligent ways.

Transpersonal psychology and deep ecological philosophy: Exploring linkages and applications for social work

Transpersonal psychology and deep ecological philosophy: Exploring linkages and applications for social work

Transpersonal Psychology and Deep Ecological Philosophy

Summary This article broadens the way social work understands the ways humanity defines and shapes its individual and collective realities in relation to nature. It incorporates and links relevant knowledge from transpersonal psychology and deep ecological philosophy in an effort to formulate fresh avenues for defining, pursuing, and resolving the many challenges that humankind faces at the dawn of this new millenium. The article concludes by suggesting some points of connection for generating a trans/ecological approach to social work and how this may portend important shifts of focus in social work theory and practice.

Encounters with Nature; Essays by Paul Shepard

Review: Encounters with Nature; Essays by Paul Shepard by Paul Shepard Reviewed by Cate Gable Berkeley, California, USA and Paris, France Shepard, Paul. Encounters with Nature, Essays by Paul Shepard. Florence R. Shepard (Ed.). Washington, DC: Island Press, 1999. 223 pp. ISBN 1-55963- 529-0 (cloth). US$24.95 Paul Shepard (1925-1996) is one of the pioneers of modern ecology. Avery Professor Emeritus of Human Ecology and Natural Philosophy at Pitzer College, he brought diverse disciplines to bear on how humans interact with and perceive the natural world. This book, edited by his wife Florence, compiles published and unpublished essays written during the course of Shepard’s life. As David Petersen says in the Introduction, Shepard's ‘subversive science’ of human ecology … [brings together] the revolutionary study of the overarching significance of humanity’s coevolution with wild animals in shared wild environs. The themes present here are the legacy of our hunter-gatherer forebears; animals and their pervasive influence on our human being-ness, cognition, and imagination; ontogeny and the shift from bonding-to-mother to bonding-to-Mother-Nature as critical in the maturation of an individual; and place as a grounding of our being. The lead essay, The Origin of Metaphor: The Animal Connection, outlines one of Shepard’s central themes. In this treatise on the stirrings of consciousness inside the human animal, Shepard proposes that the bear became an archetype for our developing sense of self’ and other. He posits that our observing and testing wits with this magnificent creature sparked the beginnings of our first and greatest technology— language, and, specifically, our ability to use metaphor and symbology. The female bear, after disappearing mysteriously with the sun all during the dark winter months, reappears with cubs in the spring. To early humans, the she-bear may have represented the mysteries of life and renewal. Shepard notes that we named the most prominent constellations in the sky Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, Big Bear and Little Bear. Our language captures bear in many forms: to bear fruit, to bear a child, to bear witness to, etc. Much of the imagery in Native arts and culture—mask making, dance and song—features the bear.

Loss, Healing, and the Power of Place

Human beings have a tendency to transform geographical spaces into dwelling places which assume significance in terms of their social, cultural and personal identities. The authors describe the ways in which this occurs, how it is disrupted by a natural disaster - an Australian bushfire - and how the reciprocal relationship between place and person can contribute to personal and communal healing. The discussion draws on a doctoral thesis conducted by the principal author, and is illuminated by excerpts from narratives provided by those who experienced the bushfire. The discussion is informed by insights from phenomenological geography and ecological philosophy.

An Iconoclast's Triptych

Edward Reed (1954-1997) is best known for his work commenting upon and developing James Gibson's ecological approach to psychology. The three books reviewed in this article set out what Reed termed his ecological philosophy. Encountering the World has the appearance of an introduction to ecological psychology, but makes little reference to the work of other researchers in this field. Rather, it is a statement of Reed's own perspective, and a critique of the artificiality of modern psychology. However, as The Necessity of Experience goes on to point out, everyday life has itself become profoundly artificial. Finally, From Soul to Mind provides an impressive historical account of how modern psychology, conceived as a science of mind rather than soul, became such a narrow and complacent project. Yet these three titles, envisaged by Reed as a triptych, do not quite connect, and fail to convey the unity as well as scope of his important vision.