Japanese Environmental Philosophy

by Callicott, J. Baird; McRae, James

• ISBN13: 9780190456337
• ISBN10: 0190456337
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2017-06-01
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Japanese Environmental Philosophy is an anthology that responds to the environmental problems of the 21st century by drawing from Japanese philosophical traditions to investigate our relationships with other humans, nonhuman animals, and the environment. It contains chapters from fifteen top scholars from Japan, the United States, and Europe. The essays cover a broad range of Japanese thought, including Zen Buddhism, Shintoism, the Kyoto School, Japanese art and aesthetics, and traditional Japanese culture.

Author Biography

J. Baird Callicott is the co-Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy and author or editor of a score of books and author of dozens of journal articles, encyclopedia entries, and book chapters in environmental philosophy and ethics. Callicott has served the International Society for Environmental Ethics as President, Yale University as Bioethicist-in-Residence, and the National Socio-environmental Synthesis Center as Visiting Senior Research Scientist (funded by the National Science Foundation). His research goes forward simultaneously on four main fronts: theoretical environmental ethics, comparative environmental ethics and philosophy, the philosophy of ecology and conservation policy, and climate ethics. He taught the world's first course in environmental ethics in 1971 at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. His most recent book is Thinking Like a Planet: The Land Ethic and the Earth Ethic (Oxford University Press, 2013) and he is currently writing a textbook on Presocratic natural philosophy.

James McRae serves as Vice-Chair of the Faculty and Associate Professor of Asian Philosophy and Religion at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. His publications include the books Environmental Philosophy in Asian Traditions of Thought (with J. Baird Callicott, SUNY Press, 2014) and The Philosophy of Ang Lee (with Robert Arp and Adam Barkman, University Press of Kentucky, 2013).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Contributors

Foreword: Back to the Future?
Carl B. Becker

Introduction
J. Baird Callicott and James McRae

Section I: Nature in the Japanese Tradition of Thought
1. Thinking the Ambient: On the Possibility of Shizengaku (Naturing Science) Augustin Berque
2. Pure Land Ecology: Taking the Supernatural Seriously in Environmental Philosophy Leah Kalmanson
3. From Kysei to Kyei: Symbiotic Flourishing in Japanese Environmental Ethics James McRae

Section II: Human Nature and the Environment
1. Kakai And Dogen as Exemplars of Ecological Engagement Graham Parkes
2. Sensation, Betweenness, Rhythms: Watsuji's Environmental Philosophy and Ethics in Conversation with Heidegger Inutsuka Yu
3. Climate Change as Existentialist Threat: Watsuji, Greimas, and the Nature of Opposites Steve Bein

Section III: Environmental Aesthetics
1. Whitehead's Perspectivism as a Basis for Environmental Ethics & Aesthetics:A Process View on the Japanese Concept of Nature Steve Odin
2. Japanese Gardens: The Art of Improving Nature Yuriko Saito
3. KukI Shizo and Platonism: Nature, Love, and Morality Yamauchi Tomosaburo

Section IV: Nature and Japanese Culture
1. Recollecting Local Narratives for the Land Ethic Toyoda Mitsuyo
2. Recognizing the Crucial Role of Culture in Japanese Environmental Philosophy Midori Kagawa-Fox
3. Kagura: Embodying Environmental Philosophy in the Japanese Performing Arts Goda Hiroko

Section V: Natural Disasters
1. Disaster Prevention as an Issue in Environmental Ethics Takahashi Takao
2. Non-Dualism after Fukushima? Tracing D?gen's Teaching vis-à-vis Nuclear Disaster Masato Ishida
3. Planetary Philosophy and Social Consensus Building Kuwako Toshio
Afterword by J. Baird Callicott
Index