Phenomenology and Ecology: Dependence and Co-Dependency

Abstract

In spite of its frivolous title, this paper has a serious purpose. I would like to suggest that, in their original intent, phenomenology and ecology are mutually supportive, but that whenever they yield to a nostalgic longing to return to a purity of Beyng or Nature, their interrelation becomes destructive. An ecological philosophy appears to me viable only within reality perceived phenomenologically, as life’s world, while the moral implications of such a conception inevitably lead to ecological conclusions. However, in their romantic mode, phenomenology and ecology can become locked in a pathological co-dependency which ultimately leads to a metacrisis.

- Kohák E. (1998) Phenomenology and Ecology: Dependence and Co-Dependency. In: Cohen R.S., Tauber A.I. (eds) Philosophies of Nature: The Human Dimension. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 195. Springer, Dordrecht

- read on: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-017-2614-6_15