Ecological Philosophy

Henryk Skolimowski

Each philosophy is a daughter of its time. It is shaped by the ethos of the epoch, as well as by its problems and agonies. New epochs usually generate their own philosophies to express their elan. And such has been the case with many 20th century philosophies.

In our times we have witnessed the emergence of post-modernism, which is a philosophy expressing the disintegrating tendencies of our civilisation. On the other hand we have witnessed the emergence of ecological philosophy which is an expression of integrating and positive tendencies of present civilisation. Post-modernism is convinced that the older foundations of civilisation, based on materialism and the mechanistic view of the world, are no longer adequate, and in fact completely in ruins and beyond repair. For this reason, post-modernism proposes to deconstruct everything.

Ecological philosophy, although convinced that the old foundations of civilisation have crumbled, is prepared to build a new civilisation, on new foundations and new visions. Thus Eco-philosophy is a positive venture. It is construction - not deconstruction. It is based on the conviction that we are not lost but only bewildered, that we can build de novo because we must.

Ecological philosophy was created in the turbulent 1970s as a response to an ever-deepening perception of the ecological crisis. Eco--philosophy was born because we realised that this new crisis (unprecedented in history) was not merely a technical or environmental crisis but also a philosophical, moral and theological crisis, shaking the foundations of our deepest beliefs; for instance, that God created the world to serve the human and that this world is to be exploited for the benefit of the humans. In the 1980s ecological philosophy articulated itself into at least five distinctive schools.

1. Social Ecology as conceived by Murray Bookchin, see especially Toward an Ecological Society, 1980.

2. Eco-philosophy - as designing new tactics for living, formulated by Henryk Skolimowski, and published in the book under the same title, 1981; an enlarged version: Living Philosophy, Eco-philosophy as a tree of Life, 1992.

3. Deep Ecology, as conceived by Arne Naess and the California School; see especially B. Devall and G. Sessions, Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature Mattered, 1985.

4. Ecology of the Earth, as formulated by Thomas Berry, See especially, The Dream of the Earth, 1990.

5. Eco-Feminism, as expressed by various authors, see especially, Eco-Feminism, Women, Culture, Nature, Karen J. Warren, ed.,1997.

One of the profound realisations of Eco-Philosophy is that the world is a sanctuary. From which it immediately follows that we are responsible shepherds of all there is. A new ethics of solidarity with all species is the next consequence; not an anthropocentric ethics, based on a privileged position of the human in the universe, but an eco-centric ethics, based on our responsibility and care for all evolution. Further consequences are: frugality in our lifestyles and responsibility for future generations - which are now mercilessly robbed of their destiny.

Yet, another consequence of Eco-philosophy is that it allies itself with the creative élan of the New Physics and claims that we live in a participatory universe and thus co-create with the world and God. God is seen as an evolving being and we are part of its evolution. This means that we are doomed to freedom, creation, and participation.

What makes various schools of ecological philosophy is their emphasis:

• Deep Ecology emphasises a radical anti-anthropocentrism and radical egalitarianism.

• Eco-Philosophy emphasises the idea of the world as a sanctuary and the participatory (thus co-creative) nature of the human and of the cosmos.

• Ecology of the Earth emphasise the necessity of reinventing the human on the species level, and on writing a New Story of the Universe.

• Eco-Feminism emphasises the necessity of reconceptualising and rewriting the entire history of the last 6000 years, including the understanding of the dominant role of the male in shaping history.

• Social ecology emphasises the importance of the social context, particularly from the Marxist point of view - as determining society, thinking and the nature of the social world.

What unites the five schools, however, is more important that what divides them. It is the conviction that:

• Present Western civilisation has exhausted its strength and its vision and is no longer capable of sustaining itself - while its basic matrix is materialism and the mechanistic model of the world is to be manipulated to our advantage.

• Present Western civilisation has devastated nature and other beings (including human beings) because it accepted a deficient code for reading the nature of the universe.

• Present Western civilisation has impoverished the phenomenon of man and cheapened our life-styles, making them in the process trivial and often aggressive.

What, above all, unites various schools of ecological philosophy is the conviction that there is light at the end of the tunnel, that philosophy is not dead and that human kind is not finished and that we are going to build a meaningful and sane future in the 21st century.

Eco-philosophy, in particular, emphasises that Hope is spring eternal - a psychic oxygen of our lives; that beauty is essential to our life, our sanity, our integrity; that creativity is part of our intrinsic nature and that thought the process of creative transcendence we shall overcome all our debacles and deliver the world and our lives in it to radiance and self-realisation - for such is the destiny of the world.

Henryk Skolimowski is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of Eco-Philosophy at Lodz. His publications include 'Eco-Philosphy, Designing new Practices for Living' (1981), 'The Theatre of the Mind' (1984), 'Living Philosophy' (1992), 'A Sacred Place to Dwell' (1993), The Participatory Mind' (1994)