Nature and Experience: Phenomenology and the Environment
256
Nature and Experience: Phenomenology and the Environment
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Overview
By bringing the concerns and methods of phenomenology to bear on questions such as these, this book seeks to redefine how environmental issues are perceived and discussed and demonstrates the relevance of phenomenological inquiry to a broader audience in environmental studies. The book examines what phenomenology must be like to address the practical and philosophical issues that emerge within environmental philosophy, what practical contributions phenomenology might make to environmental studies and policy making more generally, and the nature of our human relationship with the environment and the best way for us to engage with it.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781783485222 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 05/18/2016 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 256 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Contributors: David E. Cooper, Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, Durham University, UK; Janet Donohoe, Professor of Philosophy, University of West Georgia, USA; Thomas Greaves, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of East Anglia, UK; Simon P. James, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Durham University, UK; Guobjörg Rannveig Jóhannesdóttir, Graduate Student, University of Iceland; Irene Klaver, Professor of Philosophy, University of North Texas, USA; Scott Marratto, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Michigan Technological University, USA; Barbara Muraca, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Oregon State University, USA; Tim Christian Myers, Graduate Student, University of Oregon, USA; Bryan Smith, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Mississippi, USA; Elise Springer, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Wesleyan University, USA; Ingrid Leman Stefanovic, Dean, Faculty of Environment, Simon Fraser University, Canada; Mark Thorsby, Professor of Philosophy, Lone Star College, USA
Read an Excerpt
Nature and Experience
Phenomenology and the Environment
By Bryan E. Bannon
Rowman & Littlefield International, Ltd.
Copyright © 2016 Bryan E. BannonAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-78348-522-2
CHAPTER 1
Mythic Enlightenment
Bryan Smyth
Phenomenology and the Question Concerning Nature
This chapter is concerned with a certain contribution that transcendental phenomenology can make to contemporary environmental philosophy, and to environmental ethics in particular, with regard to the task of articulating a critical hermeneutic alternative to the traditional and still-dominant conception of nature. Although my discussion will have implications concerning the content of this hermeneutic view, the focus of my discussion will be on its idiomatic form. Drawing mainly on phenomenological considerations, the thesis for which I shall argue is that nature is best conceived in the idiom of myth, understood as a dynamic narrative horizon of significance.
This thesis makes an epistemic claim, and it is opposed primarily to any logos of nature, that is, to any determinate ontological conception of nature held as objectively true and knowable. The point is that myth (or mythos) so construed offers a positive way forward with regard to 'the question concerning nature' by enabling a viable middle course to be steered between, on the one hand, unwitting acquiescence in the problematic dualisms pertaining to the dominant conception of nature, and, on the other hand, the wholesale dismissal of the notion of nature that worries about such acquiescence can motivate. Myth can do this because, unlike logos, as a narrative horizon of significance it can posit nature without the reification of it (i.e., its objectification as a thing with invariable properties) that is a necessary and (for all intents and purposes) sufficient condition of those dualisms. It thus enables us to retain a non-anthropocentric conception of nature as the framework for critical environmental reflection, yet without saddling that reflection with the aporetic task of identifying non-anthropogenic sources of normativity.
This approach will thus have a direct bearing on questions concerning ethical motivation with regard to environmental issues, and on this score it can be given a fairly straightforward and plausible justification. Still, in theoretical terms, any talk of myth can raise alarm bells as an irrational or reactionary regress wholly antithetical to critical thought. Against this, my key claim will be that a turn to myth is theoretically justified because it is rationally inescapable when one must reckon with the outer limits of experience. This is where phenomenological reflection kicks in, for it shows that human experience in general is situated within a horizon of meaning that in principle cannot be apprehended objectively, but which operates solely as the ultimate background for any such apprehension. This horizon may (and typically does) differ across different individuals and sociocultural contexts of experience. But in each case it amounts to the referent of the idea of nature defined stipulatively as the inclusive totality of reality. In this way, nature is an ineluctable (though varying) feature of human experience in general. It does exist, so critical environmental thought must come to terms with it. And this can only be done, I submit, in mythic — and moreover, as I shall further contend, mythopoetic — terms. This approach is consistent, even to the point of remaining within the broad ambit of humanism, with the rejection of any concept of nature, or the 'denaturalization' of environmental thought (Vogel 2002, 2015; Biro 2005). It's just that in retaining a myth of nature we can more successfully articulate a humanism that has a non-anthropocentric normative profile because we can now subscribe to a form of humanism that just is non-anthropocentric in virtue of being based on an unreified conception of nature.
Although I can't explore it in detail below, the larger claim standing behind my argument is that mythos is a primordial but also permanent, essential and irreducible dimension of human consciousness, not an archaic stage with which logos effects a decisive break in phylo- and onto-genetic terms. The sort of rehabilitation of myth that I have in mind is therefore the key to overcoming the objectionable dualisms of traditional thought (e.g., culture vs. nature, human vs. animal, mind vs. body) because the archetypical dualism therein is precisely that between logos and mythos. In shifting its view of nature within this register, critical environmental thought can reengage holistically the ontological continuity believed to have priority over those binaries and on that basis generate a relational standpoint adequate to the normative complexities of the contemporary world. This mythic perspective has ramifications for a wide range of fields. But it is entirely fitting that it be worked out first in the context of environmental thought. For it is here, precisely in the form of 'the question concerning nature', that the problem of totality imposes itself most directly, and thus in a way that pushes the envelope of enlightened thought most radically.
The discussion will unfold across four sections. (1) I will first rehearse the chief motivations for pursuing a new hermeneutic conception of nature, and discuss the practical considerations that Baird Callicott has proposed in favour of a mythic view. (2) In pursuit of a theoretically stronger argument, I shall then discuss the phenomenological notion of 'horizon', and argue that nature is best conceived as the ultimate or outermost horizon of experience. (3) Informed by Anthony Steinbock's work, I will then contend that, so understood, nature is, in phenomenological terms, a generative notion, and that as such it implies the normatively charged methodological task of projecting the outer horizon of experience — that is, articulating what the meaning of nature is or what the totality of reality should be. (4) Bringing this together, and drawing on Hans Blumenberg, I will then argue that nature qua horizon is best conceived in mythic terms, that is, as the projected result of a historically dynamic mythopoetic process of significance-bestowing narrative.
TOWARD A MYTHIC HERMENEUTIC OF NATURE
Several reasons may be adduced as to why it is necessary to raise 'the question concerning nature', that is, rethink the meaning of nature. Of these reasons, two are particularly salient. First, despite notable progress, traditional conceptions of nature that are complicit with the practices which have led to current environmental crises remain effectively hegemonic within the population at large. This limits the impact that critical environmental activism can have. For even if more people than ever are familiar with ecological science, in normative terms this all too often lacks effective motivational force. Betraying (among other things) the stubborn perdurance of traditional views of nature, this situation presents the root reason for critical environmental thought to want to rethink what is meant by nature.
The second reason is that there is no universally agreed-upon answer to 'the question concerning nature'. There is, rather, disconsensus among environmentalists with regard to the basic world views that inform their work — a situation that results in incompatible and even conflicting normative conclusions (e.g., concerning restoration). This is troubling, at least inasmuch as the larger goal is to cultivate as widely as possible a new environmental ethos — if even dedicated activists are talking past one another, then it's hardly to be expected that broader strata of society will come on board.
To be sure, some of this disagreement is insurmountable — between some environmental views there is indeed no meaningful common ground. Still, it may reasonably be hoped that most do share a common core, and that this could be expressed as an answer to 'the question concerning nature' in a way that would support the formation of a more inclusive and unified social movement. For many, ecological science is the obvious candidate for this kind of environmental lingua franca. As intimated above, however, it is doubtful that increased scientific awareness, however indispensable it may be, can alone serve as an antidote to apathy, indifference or disenfranchisement in the ethical sphere.
Here we face a choice: either try to rethink nature, or else discard the idea of it altogether. Those opting for the latter prong do so primarily on the basis of arguing that the very idea of nature belongs to the dualistic edifice of traditional anthropocentrism and that it is therefore irredeemably compromised. Good intentions notwithstanding, any attempt on our part to think our way out will inevitably reinforce that edifice. Indeed, they would say that the very idea of an environmental ethic geared toward human treatment of nature understood as dualistically other cannot but reaffirm an exceptionalism that issues either in a warmed-over anthropocentric humanism or else, what is merely its dualistic flipside, a radical misanthropy. Nature is, in this view, a conceptual trap. It would therefore be best to do 'environmental philosophy without nature' (Vogel 2002, 23), or to 'de-naturalize' the project (Biro 2005) in the sense of expunging the idea of nature, in order to break free of the conceptual strictures it implies and to be able to articulate defensible normative conclusions on a coherent conceptual basis, even if it means that that basis remains one of humanism.
As noted above, the approach that I wish to outline in this chapter resonates sympathetically with this view. Yet it seems to me that the latter shares with the approaches it purports to reject the injudicious and unnecessary assumption that what is at issue is the logos of nature. With the rejection of any such approach as bearing the germ of anthropocentric domination, I entirely agree. For it involves a reification of nature which, even if it is itself normatively neutral, entails the ontological discontinuity that subtends dualism and the ethical problems thereby implied.
But there is a third option, viz., rethinking nature, but doing so in the idiom of mythos. The idea is that such an idiomatic shift, because it aims to articulate significance without advancing a claim to ontological truth, can support an unreified conception of nature. The value of this has to do with the problems noted above. In particular, it has the potential to provide critical environmental thought with a relatively uncontroversial basis for internal consensus. For if concerning nature there are deeper core intuitions common to otherwise theoretically discordant views, then these might be expressible in mythic terms without foreclosing debate on other issues. More broadly, expressing an environmental ethos in mythic terms could help with effectively broadcasting the message not only in cognitive terms but also at an affective level that could have greater motivational impact.
Baird Callicott has raised similar ideas in arguing for a mythic view of nature as the ground for environmental ethics (Callicott 2002, 2011). His basic argument runs as follows: (1) Important environmental issues are essentially global in nature and as such require a coherent global response. (2) Human beings live in a multiplicity of cultural contexts — to be practically effective, then, environmental ethics must be expressed in 'the grammars of local cultures' (2002, 158). (3) Environmental ethics therefore needs a framework that is 'universally intelligible and acceptable' (2002,162), yet compatible with cultural diversity. (4) Science in its modern sense does not supply an appropriate framework. For in claiming unique access to truth and objectivity it involves an 'epistemic arrogance' that is incompatible with cultural diversity (2002, 162). At work here is the postmodern 'deconstructive' recognition that there can be no unmediated access to reality, and that representations of it are always socially constructed in and through discourse. (5) This recognition does not derail or invalidate science. But it does mean that it is always embedded hermeneutically within a narrative framework or mythic 'world view'. (6) Although such world views make no claim to their own truth, they condition what counts as true and real, and can be judged as more or less tenable according to several specifiable criteria: internal consistency, consistency with scientific results, comprehensiveness, revisability in the light of new experience, 'aesthetic and spiritual appeal,' and, crucially, the extent to which it 'facilitate[s] the survival and prosperity of its subscribers' (2002, 167ff; cf. 2011, 516f). (7) Alongside a deconstructed view of (ecological) science, then, what is needed is a 'reconstructive' approach that takes up, explicitly and self-consciously, the open-ended task of formulating a mythic view of nature as tenably as possible in the context of contemporary critical environmental thought. This myth would be a new 'grand narrative' that reaffirms the category of totality. It's just that the idiomatic shift to myth means that questions concerning practical tenability are fully distinct from those concerning theoretical veracity (thus dispelling worries about illicit totalization). Callicott's hope is that by pairing science with myth along these lines, 'reconstructive post-modernism' would be able to provide an optimal grounding for environmental ethics by successfully bridging universality and difference through the ascription of an appropriate normative significance to the results of science.
In terms of content, the mythic narrative that Callicott has in mind relates closely to the Leopoldian land ethic of which he is, of course, a leading advocate (Callicott 1989). It amounts to what he calls 'the evolutionary-ecological myth' (2002, 168) or 'worldview' (2011) which, although informed by science, goes beyond it in assigning axiological significance to evolutionary history and ecological holism in such a way as to bring it about, for example, that 'other species are perceived as our phylogenetic kin and working partners on the economy of nature' (2002, 162) or, more generally, that we might begin to 'think like a mountain' (Leopold 1949). The implied narrative satisfies fairly well the general criteria that Callicott laid out, including on the practical side. For in emphasizing themes of embeddedness, cooperation and wholeness, '[it may] inspire its subscribers to better adapt, long-term, to the ecological exigencies of the biosphere, and thus prolong human tenure on the planet' (2002, 169). The key point is that this ethical inspiration, and the perceptions upon which it is based, do not derive from evolutionary or ecological science directly, but from the meaning attached to their results by the adopted mythical-narrative framework (2011, 521).
More could be said about Callicott's position on myth. But for present purposes it suffices to have shown that a turn to myth in environmental thought is cogent and well motivated, and not a whacky or madcap proposal. Still, objections may be raised against it. In moving forward, then, I just want to raise one point of criticism, to wit, that in his discussion Callicott offers a mixed rationale. The turn to myth is presented as following primarily from the inability of science to provide normative grounds for environmental ethics. However, Callicott also suggests unmistakably (e.g., 2002, 158, 171; 2011, 517, 520) that the turn to myth is based on the idea that science is too difficult for 'ordinary folk' to understand, and that its ethical uptake therefore requires the message to be communicated in a simpler form. This claim plays into standard objections to myth that see it as ineluctably compromising rationality in some way. As a qualified defence of what I take to be Callicott's main claim, then, I want to show that far from any potentially disputable practical considerations, there is an essential theoretical need, based in the very nature of the experience of nature, for critical environmental thought to make a mythic turn.
PHENOMENOLOGY OF HORIZONS
To this end, I shall briefly discuss the phenomenological notion of 'horizon'. The upshot here will be that nature is best conceived as the ultimate or outermost horizon of experience, leading to the claim that it falls within the domain of myth.
The phenomenological notion of horizon is rooted in, but not identical to, the ordinary pre-philosophical meaning of the term. Consider, for example, the paradigm case of the horizon one experiences when looking out over the ocean, or a wide-open landscape. Three interrelated aspects of this experience are salient (cf. Kuhn 1940, 107–8; Geniusas 2012, 1–2). First, the horizon is experienced as a circumscriptive limit to one's experience — yet it is also something which, in framing that experience, serves to determine its content. Things appear in meaningful ways within the horizon at least partly in virtue of the horizon, which itself remains, in a sense, invisible. Second, we do not experience the horizon itself directly, but only indirectly in shifting our attention away from particular objects. In doing this, however, the horizon always recedes further — it is an essentially open liminal structure of our experience which we can never, in principle, surpass. Third, as a structure of experience, the horizon is essentially relative to one's subjective situation — even though it conditions one's experience of all things, the horizon is not straightforwardly real in any objective sense. Otherwise put, there is no such thing as the horizon.
(Continues...)
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