Philosophy and Ecology: Toward a Green Metaphysics, Phenomenology, and Epistemology
School of Consciousness and Transformation PAR 6071 3.00
The purpose of this course is both to introduce and to deepen students' awareness of important work within the growing field of environmental philosophy. Although environmental philosophy is sometimes treated as if it were reducible to environmental ethics, the questions raised by the ecological crisis go beyond the merely ethical and prompt us to consider many of our deepest philosophical accounts and commitments. Throughout this course, students engage with the way a diverse set of environmental philosophers have sought to employ and sometimes to revise metaphysical, phenomenological, and epistemological issues in the light of green concerns. The course begins by considering the historical background of the emergence of environmental philosophy and then moves on to consider the state of the field in recent decades. Works emerging from within analytic, continental, and process/pragmatist traditions are considered, as are key works from within the philosophical sides of both deep ecology and ecofeminism.
