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Philosophy and Environmental Crisis
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Philosophy and Environmental Crisis

A special issue of Philosophies (ISSN 2409-9287).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2021) | Viewed by 27022

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Michael Marder

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science, 48009 Bilbao, Spain
2. Department of Philosophy, University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU), 48940 Leioa, Spain
Interests: phenomenology; ethical and political philosophy; environmental philosophy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In light of an unprecendented global environmental crisis, innovative ways of thinking and bold philosophical approaches are required to tackle this most pressing of contemporary problems. At both academic and quotidian levels, the degree of change that has already happened has not yet been fully grapsed: the world that humanity is facing in the twenty-first century is unlike anything experienced in the past. In addition to the notions of dwelling and ecology, even such apparently simple terms as water, earth, or air no longer correspond to their long-standing cultural and cognitive framing. Water, for example, is—far from the transparent and pure, life-giving liquid substance one usually has in mind—a dangerous mix of chemicals and heavy metals, industrial runoff, and microplastics. That is why it is not enough to apply already-existing philosophies to the current situation, merely extending their explanatory scope. What is needed, rather, is a philosophical re-foundation, seeking not the indubitable certainties of the self and reality but a mode of thinking that emerges from and circles back to its environmental background.

This Special Issue of Philosophies on “Philosophy and Environmental Crisis” invites contributions on topics related to, though not limited to, catastrophic climate change; theories and practices in energy; ecology and economy; biodiversity loss and the sixth mass extinction; climate refugees; survivalism, extinction, and nihilism; rethinking the elements (earth, air, water, etc.); and environmental ethics and responsibility. The emphasis should be placed on raising the right questions, formulating ecological problems in stark new ways, and shifting the very frame of debates around the environment, rather than on readymade theories and solutions.

Prof. Michael Marder
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • environmental crisis
  • ecology
  • economy
  • energy
  • biodiversity
  • climate change
  • climate refugees
  • nihilism
  • responsibility

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Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

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9 pages, 227 KiB  
Article
SHE (Sustainability, Health, Ethics)—A Grid for an Embodied Ethic
by Brian Macallan
Philosophies 2022, 7(2), 23; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies7020023 - 25 Feb 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2445
Abstract
Our current planetary emergency is one in which we are facing significant global warming as a result of human-driven climate change. This is having and will continue to have catastrophic results for the earth’s ecosystems and for life as we know it. The [...] Read more.
Our current planetary emergency is one in which we are facing significant global warming as a result of human-driven climate change. This is having and will continue to have catastrophic results for the earth’s ecosystems and for life as we know it. The Christian tradition often works actively against the seriousness of these challenges due to its eschatological outlook. Process theology, as one stream within the Christian tradition, embraces a different vision of the future that fosters engagement in current concerns rather than an escapist approach. A process theological proposal is therefore offered that calls for an embodied ethic that embraces the acronym SHE. SHE stands for Sustainability, Health, and Ethics. It provides a dietary grid as a way to embody ethics to bring about societal change in light of environmental challenges. SHE is proposed against a background that argues for Christian engagement in our current global crisis. The idea of “small turnings” as a conceptual idea is adopted to help frame how the SHE grid might be understood. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Philosophy and Environmental Crisis)
9 pages, 260 KiB  
Article
In What Person to Say the Disaster? From R. Kusch towards An-Other Cogitamus
by Héctor Andrés Peña
Philosophies 2022, 7(1), 13; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies7010013 - 27 Jan 2022
Viewed by 2092
Abstract
“Latin America”, for the ecopolitical approach, could be appropriate as the proper name of the ecological disaster, even as its first person: the environmental catastrophe, by means of “Latin America”, would say “I”. Genealogically, and as part of the so-called “Third World”, it [...] Read more.
“Latin America”, for the ecopolitical approach, could be appropriate as the proper name of the ecological disaster, even as its first person: the environmental catastrophe, by means of “Latin America”, would say “I”. Genealogically, and as part of the so-called “Third World”, it would delimit the frontiers where the disastrous takes place “naturally”. But “Latin America”, from the philosophical perspective, has also been the locus par excellence to think about the vegetal and the indigenous. This article, driven by the current relevance of these two concepts, rereads the work of Rodolfo Kusch, one of the key figures of the so-called Pensamiento latinoamericano, and unveils not only one of the most original reflections on “plant metaphysics” and the “indigenous thought” but also the contours of a new or alternative philosophical subject: a thinking “we”. Drawing on Kusch’s indications, this text traces “an-other us” on the discursive level and develops the fundamental Kuschean intuition according to which such “we” has a synesthetic nature. From there, this article points to the conceptual reconfigurations of the vegetal and the indigenous by M. Marder and E. Viveiros de Castro to indicate in them the need to experiment, before and in the face of disaster, an-other “us” by/in thinking. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Philosophy and Environmental Crisis)
8 pages, 224 KiB  
Article
From Ama Lur to the Anthropocene and Back: The Earth in Basque Mythology
by Luis Garagalza
Philosophies 2022, 7(1), 12; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies7010012 - 26 Jan 2022
Viewed by 2381
Abstract
What I propose is that, by delving into the world of mythologies, there we might find some indications, helpful for understanding what is happening with the environment today. To do so, I will revisit a particular mythology from the South of Europe, an [...] Read more.
What I propose is that, by delving into the world of mythologies, there we might find some indications, helpful for understanding what is happening with the environment today. To do so, I will revisit a particular mythology from the South of Europe, an archaic (probably, a pre-Indo-European one), namely Basque mythology. Here, earth (lurra) appears as a maternal character (Ama-lur) and becomes, in a sense, divine in the figure of the goddess Mari, who occupied a central and predominant position in this cosmovision. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Philosophy and Environmental Crisis)
10 pages, 258 KiB  
Article
Vertigos. Climates of Philosophy
by Giovanbattista Tusa
Philosophies 2022, 7(1), 7; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies7010007 - 10 Jan 2022
Viewed by 3011
Abstract
In this essay, I suggest that we are currently witnessing a mutation, which disrupts the mythical imaginary that had confined viruses, climate change, and atmospheric turbulences to an immutable background in the all-too-human narrative of the struggle against nature. I argue that the [...] Read more.
In this essay, I suggest that we are currently witnessing a mutation, which disrupts the mythical imaginary that had confined viruses, climate change, and atmospheric turbulences to an immutable background in the all-too-human narrative of the struggle against nature. I argue that the incapacity of translating this mutation in cultural and social terms, and the repression of this traumatic experience, are the cause of the perturbation that haunts our time. Disorientation pervades philosophy when the entire imaginary to which it had anchored its power to change the world seems to dissolve in the air, when what was silent and distant turns out to be vibrant, more familiar to us than any known proximity. Precisely for this reason, philosophy must rediscover its ability to inhabit times and spaces different from those oriented by the hegemony of capitalist progress, with its correlate of regular catastrophic emergencies and calculated risk. In this essay, I aim to present a perspective in which, instead of coming back straightforwardly ‘down to earth’, philosophy accepts inhabiting the fluctuating disorientation of its own time, itself populated by intermittent and uncertain opportunities of experiencing differently the past and the future—to encounter different relationships with the times that change. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Philosophy and Environmental Crisis)
7 pages, 193 KiB  
Article
The Ecological Literacies of St. Hildegard of Bingen
by Michael Marder
Philosophies 2021, 6(4), 98; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies6040098 - 29 Nov 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2894
Abstract
Literacy is, literally, a question not of education but of the letter. More than that, it is the question of the letter in the two senses the word has in English: as a symbol of the alphabet and a piece of correspondence. It [...] Read more.
Literacy is, literally, a question not of education but of the letter. More than that, it is the question of the letter in the two senses the word has in English: as a symbol of the alphabet and a piece of correspondence. It is my hypothesis that ecological literacies may learn a great deal from the literalization, or even the hyper-literalization, of the letter and that they may do so by turning to the corpus of twelfth-century Benedictine abbess, polymath, and mystic St. Hildegard of Bingen. After all, Hildegard, who was exquisitely attuned to the vegetal world, which was at the core of her theological and scientific endeavors, corresponded through letters with the leading personalities of her times and also invented a language, called lingua ignota (the unknown language) replete with ignotas litteras (the unknown letters). Who better than her can spell out the senses of ecological literacy? Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Philosophy and Environmental Crisis)
18 pages, 337 KiB  
Article
The Ethics of Plant Flourishing and Agricultural Ethics: Theoretical Distinctions and Concrete Recommendations in Light of the Environmental Crisis
by Quentin Hiernaux
Philosophies 2021, 6(4), 91; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies6040091 - 27 Oct 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 10213
Abstract
Many activities towards plants are directly related to environmental crisis issues. However, our actions towards plants are little theorized in philosophy and ethics. After a brief presentation of the history, state of the art, and current issues of plant ethics, I critically illustrate [...] Read more.
Many activities towards plants are directly related to environmental crisis issues. However, our actions towards plants are little theorized in philosophy and ethics. After a brief presentation of the history, state of the art, and current issues of plant ethics, I critically illustrate how the theoretical threads of current ethics should be clarified, and, more importantly, contextualised, to promote the application of concrete measures. Particular attention is paid to the ethics of plant flourishing as applied to different fields and types of plants. The treatment of wild and ornamental plants is, thus, explicitly distinguished from that of improved agricultural varieties, themselves distinguishable according to modes of cultivation. I thus propose and discuss several recommendations and concrete courses of action to promote an ethics of plants, while pointing out its limitations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Philosophy and Environmental Crisis)

Other

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8 pages, 185 KiB  
Essay
Is There an Environmental Principle of Causality?
by Cecilia Sá Cavalcante Schuback
Philosophies 2022, 7(1), 9; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies7010009 - 21 Jan 2022
Viewed by 2192
Abstract
This essay considers and reflects upon the principle of causality and its relation to the global environmental crisis. Parting from some of Immanuel Kant’s views on causality and freedom as well as from Heidegger’s reading of causality in Kant, it asks some questions [...] Read more.
This essay considers and reflects upon the principle of causality and its relation to the global environmental crisis. Parting from some of Immanuel Kant’s views on causality and freedom as well as from Heidegger’s reading of causality in Kant, it asks some questions about the role of human activity in the principle of causality, the relation between causality and freedom, and in what possible different way we could interpret causality and environment. The essay proposes that instead of trying to decide on the subject of who causes the environmental crisis, and on the subject capable to solve it, one must turn the intention of inquiry to the very principle of causality and consider the need to rethink this notion today. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Philosophy and Environmental Crisis)
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