The Philosophical Foundations of Ecological Civilization: A manifesto for the future

by Arran Gare

Overview

The global ecological crisis is the greatest challenge humanity has ever had to confront, and humanity is failing. The triumph of the neo-liberal agenda, together with a debauched ‘scientism’, has reduced nature and people to nothing but raw materials, instruments and consumers to be efficiently managed in a global market dominated by corporate managers, media moguls and technocrats. The arts and the humanities have been devalued, genuine science has been crippled, and the quest for autonomy and democracy undermined. The resultant trajectory towards global ecological destruction appears inexorable, and neither governments nor environmental movements have significantly altered this, or indeed, seem able to. The Philosophical Foundations of Ecological Civilization is a wide-ranging and scholarly analysis of this failure.

This book reframes the dynamics of the debate beyond the discourses of economics, politics and techno-science. Reviving natural philosophy to align science with the humanities, it offers the categories required to reform our modes of existence and our institutions so that we augment, rather than undermine, the life of the ecosystems of which we are part. From this philosophical foundation, the author puts forth a manifesto for transforming our culture into one which could provide an effective global environmental movement and provide the foundations for a global ecological civilization.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781134866137
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	08/05/2016
Series:	ISSN
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	270
File size:	993 KB

About the Author

Arran Gare is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Cultural Inquiry at Swinburne University of Technology, Australia.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1. The Ultimate Crisis of Civilization: Why Turn to Philosophy 2. From Analytic Philosophy to Speculative Naturalism 3. Dialectics: From Marx to Post-Marxism 4. The Dialectics of Speculative Naturalism 5. Reviving the Radical Enlightenment Through Speculative Naturalism 6. From the Radical Enlightenment to Ecological Civilization: Creating the Future Conclusion: Ecological Civilization and ‘Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness’

Editorial Reviews

"Gare’s outstanding environmental Manifesto should be widely meditated at a time of looming human extinction. By philosophers; who so often tend to forget their Socratic roots. By academics, so that they may recover a healthy sense of duty and reverence for life in general, and education in particular. By scientists, of course, in order to come to grips with the presuppositions and the too many nefarious consequences of their discipline. And, perhaps more importantly, by educated people. Gare’s common-sensical and pragmatic approach —albeit sophisticated— is urgently needed to trigger a cultural epoch adequate to the current challenges."
Dr. Michel Weber, The Centre for Philosophical Practice.

"Arran Gare has written a passionate, urgently needed, and compelling manifesto to help us avoid a global, imminent, ecological catastrophe. Widely and deeply researched, this book is a challenge and a wake-up call for philosophers and non-philosophers alike. He joins theory and practice to show the inadequacy of most contemporary philosophies and economic/political policies for creating "an ecologically sustainable civilization."
William S. Hamrick,Southern Illinois University.

"In the modern value free research university, history of any kind is reduced to information about this or that past event. The effort to understand what is happening by describing the way the present has come to be has been largely excluded at a time when such understanding is essential for wise response to unprecedented global crises. When universities awaken from their dogmatic slumber, Gare's account of the history of thought will become the classic basis for building new institutions responding to urgent needs."
John Cobb Jr.,Claremont School of Theology.

"Gare’s Manifesto is a clarion sounding against nihilism. Prevailing technoscience is a monism built upon minimalist models that yields only heat death in the long term and human extirpation in the more immediate future. Gare posits instead a "speculative naturalism" that explores a dialectical worldview in terms of those feedbacks among social and material processes that provide meaning and ‘happiness’ in terms of a life fulfilled. A philosophical and ecological guide to survival in necrophilic times!"
Robert E. Ulanowicz, University of Florida.

"In his sweeping survey of the damage done to Life and Thought by the predominant modern interpretation of naturalism called scientism, Arran Gare outlines a radically nonmodern ‘speculative naturalism. To this end Gare examines the shortcomings of numerous modern philosophical movements that have proved to be impotent in the face of destructive socio-economic doctrines—-such as a voracious and parasitic form of capitalism. Maintaining that a genuinely comprehensive philosophy of nature may yet result in more responsible attitudes towards Nature and all its creatures, Gare holds out some hope for a self-destructive civilization on the verge of immanent collapse."
Murray Code, Guelph University.

"From a scientific perspective, Arran Gare in this work struggles with problems raised by the mutually reinforcing practices of Newtonian science and analytical philosophy, which have motivated the ascendency of ‘technoscience’ and the eclipse of a more holistic ‘ecological science’. His own perspective on science-in-society emerges from a generally phenomenological viewpoint. Taking a dialectical stance, he urges that our conceptual world needs to get beyond focus on Analysis and some timid tentative Synopses. Intellectual work needs instead to go all the way toward forming working Syntheses which can serve as guiding frameworks for scientific investigations. He urges Speculative Naturalism, in the form founded by Schelling, which transcends both British analytical philosophy and French structuralism as being suitable for guiding scientific inquiry. This would place scientific investigations in a generally developmental framework, which would be accessible as well to perspectives in the humanities as a philosophy of science. Then, as well, importantly, such an approach potentially presents a framework informative for environmentalism. This latter connection points toward the goal of creating an ‘ecological civilization’."
Stanley Salthe, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.

Looking at the work overall, it is clear that the years have not dimmed Gare’s breadth of interests or intellectual ambition… It is an impressive, clearly targeted and far reaching philosophical work, and deserves a significant audience. - PIERS H.G. STEPHENS, University of Georgia, USA. From Environmental Values, Vol. 28, Number 2, April 2019

"On the whole, Gare’s book positively challenges dominant modes of contemporary thought within and beyond the academy, and he develops an alluring alternative—one that will be challenging to realize."- Alexander Haitos, PROCESS STUDIES 47.1-2 (2018). University of Illinois Press

From the Publisher