The Struggle for Nature: A Critique of Environmental Philosophy

by Keulartz,Jozet

• ISBN13: 9780415180948
• ISBN10: 0415180945
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 1999-02-10
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

The Struggle for Natureoutlines and examines the main aspects of current environmental philosophy including deep ecology, social and political ecology, eco-feminism and eco-anarchism. It criticizes the dependency on science of these philosophies and the social problems engendered by them. Jozef Keulartz argues for a post-naturalistic turn in environmental philosophy.The Struggle for Naturepresents the most up-to-date arguments in environmental philosophy, which will be valuable reading for anyone interested in applied philosophy, environmental studies or geography.

Author Biography

Jozef Keulartz is Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Philosophy at Wageningen Agricultural University

Table of Contents

Prologue: Towards a post-naturalist environmental philosophy	p. 1
The anarchist solution	p. 2
The ecocentric proposal	p. 6
The other Kehre of Hannah Arendt	p. 11
Biopower and communicative power	p. 13
The power theory perspective	p. 14
The broken light of truth	p. 16
The language philosophy perspective	p. 19
Between biology and biopower	p. 23
Archaeology of the ecological gaze	p. 23
The discovery of the environment	p. 25
Natural history	p. 25
The Janus face of physico-theology	p. 27
The epistemological precedence of botany	p. 30
The birth of biology	p. 32
The struggle for life	p. 35
Biology enters the political arena	p. 38
The emergence of biopower	p. 40
From sovereign power to biopower	p. 40
The family between coercion and seduction	p. 43
Hygeia and Victoria	p. 45
Two types of pseudo-sciences	p. 47
Foucault's blind spot	p. 49
From Patrick Geddes to Lewis Mumford	p. 52
Sociology on a biological foundation	p. 53
Anabolism and catabolism	p. 54
The natural region as the cradle of the town	p. 56
Palaeotechnics and neotechnics	p. 59
Urbane and rustic intelligence	p. 62
The cuckoo chick Mumford	p. 63
The city in history	p. 65
Mumford's influence	p. 68
Letchworth in Limburg	p. 70
The Garden City	p. 71
The twin god Howard--Geddes	p. 74
Sodom-on-the-Maas	p. 75
The miners' colony as a management tool	p. 78
Anarchy = order	p. 81
Dream or nightmare?	p. 86
Between science and ideology	p. 91
A critique of ecological reason	p. 91
Scarcity and equality	p. 93
From organic to ecological society	p. 94
The scales of justice	p. 97
Gender and sex	p. 98
Mimetic desire and the scapegoat mechanism	p. 100
Revelation	p. 103
Only violence?	p. 107
Classical anarchism and eco-anarchism	p. 109
Freedom as moral self-direction	p. 110
Science as the master of ethics	p. 111
Between anachronism and scientism	p. 114
Neo-Stoicism in social and deep ecology	p. 116
From positivism to holism	p. 120
Holism and totalitarianism	p. 124
Whitehead's organicism	p. 125
Smuts and holism	p. 130
Holism and ecology	p. 135
The totalitarian temptation	p. 140
Separate ways	p. 143
Climax or civilization	p. 143
'New Ecology'	p. 147
Social ecology as pastiche	p. 150
The fable of the climax	p. 152
Stability versus persistence	p. 153
Ostrich politics	p. 154
Epilogue: Towards a democratic landscape	p. 157
Power to the primitive imagination	p. 159
The paradox of nature development	p. 161
The new coalition	p. 164
The smothered differend	p. 165
Suppressed litigation	p. 169
Concluding remarks	p. 173
Bibliography	p. 175
Indexes	p. 182
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