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Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment Advance Access originally published online on November 5, 2009
Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 2009 16(4):709-725; doi:10.1093/isle/isp091
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© The Author(s) 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Toward a Post-Mechanistic Philosophy of Nature

David R. Keller

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Any discourse takes place within a metaphysical framework. In the Western, or Occidental, intellectual tradition, discourse on the human place in nature has been dominated by the ontology and axiology of Modernity. Constructing a new, more robust vocabulary for ecological discourse necessitates that we surmount the limitations and presuppositions of the Modern weltanschauung.

Discourse on the human place in nature involves the study of human beings, the study of nonhuman nature, and relationships between the two. Three central questions arise:

  • What are human beings?
  • What is nature?
  • How are humans related to nature?

In terms of environmental philosophy, Modernity is appropriately understood as answering the first question with Cartesian philosophy of self, the second question with the mechanistic view of nature. The Modernist's answers to these first two questions entail a response to the third: humanity and nature are metaphysically discrete.

Correspondingly, a post-Modern environmental philosophy can properly be . . . [Full Text of this Article]


   The Mechanistic View of Nature
 

   Anthropocentric Philosophy of Self
 

   Mechanistic Philosophy of Biology
 

   The Breakdown of Mechanistic Philosophy of Biology
 

   Environmental Philosophy: Farewell to Modernity
 

   Conclusion: Toward a New Ontology for Ecological Discourse
 

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