Nature and Landscape: An Introduction to Environmental Aesthetics

by Allen Carlson

Overview

The roots of environmental aesthetics reach back to the ideas of eighteenth-century thinkers who found nature an ideal source of aesthetic experience. Today, having blossomed into a significant subfield of aesthetics, environmental aesthetics studies and encourages the appreciation of not just natural environments but also human-made and human-modified landscapes.

Nature and Landscape is an important introduction to this rapidly growing area of aesthetic understanding and appreciation. Allen Carlson begins by tracing the development of the field's historical background, and then surveys contemporary positions on the aesthetics of nature, such as scientific cognitivism, which holds that certain kinds of scientific knowledge are necessary for a full appreciation of natural environments. Carlson next turns to environments that have been created or changed by humans and the dilemmas that are posed by the appreciation of such landscapes. He examines how to aesthetically appreciate a variety of urban and rural landscapes and concludes with a discussion of whether there is, in general, a correct way to aesthetically experience the environment.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231140416
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	12/15/2008
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Allen Carlson is professor of philosophy at the University of Alberta. He is the author of Aesthetics and the Environment: The Appreciation of Nature, Art and Architecture and, with Glenn Parsons, coauthor of Functional Beauty, as well as coeditor of Nature, Aesthetics, and Environmentalism: From Beauty to Duty, The Aesthetics of Human Environments, and The Aesthetics of Natural Environments.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
1. The Development and Nature of Environmental Aesthetics
2. Aesthetic Appreciation and the Natural Environment
3. The Requirements for an Adequate Aesthetics of Nature
4. Aesthetic Appreciation and the Human Environment
5. Appreciation of the Human Environment Under Different Conceptions
6. Aesthetic Appreciation and the Agricultural Landscape
7. What Is the Correct Way to Aesthetically Appreciate Landscapes?
Notes
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

Emily Brady

Allen Carlson is an absolute leader in environmental aesthetics. Besides being an early figure in establishing the importance of the field, his position has framed much of the current debate, and he has an exemplary handle on the issues from all perspectives—current, historical, and interdisciplinary.

— Emily Brady, University of Edinburgh

Yuriko Saito

The best introduction to environmental aesthetics by a pioneer who helped establish the discipline. Through his characteristically clear, systematic, and balanced discussion, Allen Carlson gives a most comprehensive, up-to-date, and accessible account of this rapidly growing field. For those who have followed his writings over the past three decades, this book will provide rich food for thought and possibilities for further exploration.

— Yuriko Saito, professor of philosophy, Rhode Island School of Design

Emily Brady

Allen Carlson is an absolute leader in environmental aesthetics. Besides being an early figure in establishing the importance of the field, his position has framed much of the current debate, and he has an exemplary handle on the issues from all perspectives—current, historical, and interdisciplinary.

Editorial Reviews

A superbly clear, much needed, methodological framework, the natural environmental model, for the emerging field of environmental aesthetics... Highly recommended.

Choice

Convenient for anyone eager to learn about Carlson's aesthetics, which is expressed in percipent, clear prose.

Environmental Ethics - Frank Derringh

Convenient for anyone eager to learn about Carlson's aesthetics, which is expressed in percipent, clear prose.

— Frank Derringh

Environmental Ethics