Wilderness

Wilderness experiences were celebrated by the Great Romantics, and figures such as Wordsworth and Thoreau emphasized the need to seek direct contact with the non-human world. Later deep ecologists accentuated the way in which wilderness experiences can spark moral epiphanies and lead to action on behalf of the natural environment. In recent years, psychological studies have manifested how the observations made by the Romantics, nature authors and deep ecologists apply to laypeople: contact with the wilderness does tend to lead to (...) epistemological, ontological and normative ‘epiphanies.’ This paper analyses four different umbrella terms with which to make sense of the content of wilderness experiences. First, mystical experience, peak experience and elevation are explored. Although all three offer promising models for explicating the nature of wilderness experiences, they also run the risk of reducing those experiences to sheer experiential hedonism.... (shrink)

Contemporary views on the aesthetics of nature fall into two opposing schools of thought; the cognitive school where philosophers such as Allen Carlson believe that science can explain everything about the aesthetics of nature, and the non-cognitive where, for example, Arnold Berleant maintains that science is a sufficient though not a necessary condition for the aesthetic appreciation of nature. Berleant and others of his kind contend that an engaged multi-sensuous relationship with nature will manifest the required experience. Empathy with nature, (...) specifically primal empathy is the focus of this research, but empathy can only be experienced from a phenomenological perspective. I have walked over two hundred miles in over 70 Florida state parks, including an autumn trip to Vermont and back. During this journey I came to experience a personal connection (empathy) with nature that I now believe is grounded in holism and a methodology of the sublime leading to the beautiful. The main conclusions derived from this research are: self-realized individuals will experience the connection I speak of more quickly than those who are not, and the genius nature artist through a creative act grounded in primal empathy can reveal the Ideas or Forms of nature to those who would otherwise never experience them. This research also concludes that empathy with nature, specifically primal empathy, is a new element that can reduce the cleft and help unify the two opposing views. (shrink)

The wilderness debate that has raged in American environmentalism since the 1990s has led to the valuation of less spectacular forms of nature than wilderness. This increasing interest in ordinary nature brings American environmental thought to an environmental ground more familiar to French ecologists. Although the wilderness idea that has focused on untrammeled places was difficult to integrate into the French philosophical landscape, reaching common ground could foster exchanges between American environmental ethics and French political ecology. More precisely, the renewal (...) of naturalism that emerged from the wilderness debate could inform French political ecology, which sometimes tends to reduce environmental problems to social issues. (shrink)

Building on theoretical insights and rich experimental data of our preprints, we present here new theoretical and experimental results in three interrelated approaches to the Collatz problem and its generalizations: algorithmic decidability, random behavior, and Diophantine representation of related discrete dynamical systems, and their cyclic and divergent properties.

Even with the very best intentions , Western culture’s approach to wilderness and wildness, the otherness of nature, tends to be one of imperialistic domination and appropriation. Nevertheless, in spite of Western culture’s attempt to gain total control over nature by imprisoning wildness in wilderness areas, which are meant to be merely controlled “simulations” of wildness, a real wildness, a real otherness, can still be found in wilderness reserves . This wildness can serve as the literal ground for the subversion (...) of the imperium, and consequently as the basis for the practical establishment of and residence in what WendeII Berry has called the “landscape of harmony.” Here all land becomes wild sacred space that humans consciously come to reinhabit. In this subversive potential lies the most fundamental justification for the legal establishment of wilderness reserves. (shrink)

There is a complexity of entities and happenings embodied within the pillars that frame the doorways in our homes and support the broad flat spaces that form supermarkets and department stores. Each pillar speaks to the mythology encircling the origins of Gothic architecture; the ideas surrounding the shift from the trunks and boughs of the sacred grove toward the columns, arches, and vaults of church and cathedral. Each pillar embodies the evolution of life and the history of the Earth. Awakening (...) toward the relational agency at play within the “humanly derived” allows us to recognize this agency as akin to wildness and as William Cronon asserts, this kinship draws us closer to recognizing and responding to the wild in all that surrounds us. It also produces a shift in how we understand the concept of wilderness. It is not, as Cronon contends, a cultural construct, but a fluxing and complex gestalt that includes both human and more-than-human agency. (shrink)

There is a complexity of entities and happenings embodied within the pillars that frame the doorways in our homes and support the broad flat spaces that form supermarkets and department stores. Each pillar speaks to the mythology encircling the origins of Gothic architecture; the ideas surrounding the shift from the trunks and boughs of the sacred grove toward the columns, arches, and vaults of church and cathedral. Each pillar embodies the evolution of life and the history of the Earth. Awakening (...) toward the relational agency at play within the “humanly derived” allows us to recognize this agency as akin to wildness and as William Cronon asserts, this kinship draws us closer to recognizing and responding to the wild in all that surrounds us. It also produces a shift in how we understand the concept of wilderness. It is not, as Cronon contends, a cultural construct, but a fluxing and complex gestalt that includes both human and more-than-human agency. (shrink)

Roderick Nash’s conc1usion in Wilderness and the American Mind that St. Francis “stood alone in a posture of humility and respect before the natural world” is not supported by thorough analysis of monastic literature. Rather St. Francis stands at the end of a thousand-year monastic tradition. Investigation of the “histories” and sayings of the desert fathers produces frequent references to the environment, particularly to wildlife. In stories about lions, wolves, antelopes, and other animals, the monks sometimes exercise spiritual powers over (...) the animals, but frequently the relationship is reciprocal: the monks provide for the animals and the animals provide for the monks. This literature personifies wild animals and portrays them as possessing Christian virtues. The desert monk is portrayed as the “new Adam” living at peace with creation. Some of the literature is anti-urban, with the city treated as a place of sin, the desert a place of purification. The wildemess functions much as a monk’s cell, providing freedom from worldly concems and a solitary place for prayer and contemplation. The monks’ relationship to the desert is evidence of their spiritual progress. (shrink)

Captured in narrative textual form through open-ended and tape-recorded interview conversations, visitor experience was interpreted to construct a description of visitors' relationships to place while at the same time providing insights for those who manage the national park. Humans are conceived of as meaning-makers, and outdoor recreation is viewed as emergent experience that can enrich peoples' lives rather than a predictable outcome of processing information encountered in the setting. This process-oriented approach positions subjective well-being and positive experience in the ongoing (...) processes and activities that comprise our life pursuits rather than in particular end states toward which behaviors might be directed as in the case of end state frameworks. ;Several themes emerged in the interpretation across narratives including a relationship of stewardship/sense of respectful mitigation, socially constructed dimensions of the wilderness concept, which both converged with and deviated from definitions in The Wilderness Act of 1964, humans positioned as both part of wilderness and separate from it, description of a process whereby people form a relationship to protected places, and an awareness among visitors of the overarching management dilemma of how to balance human visitation with protection. Management insights and general implications that emerged from the overall interpretation such as using narrative illustration to enhance visitor education were summarized. ;It is suggested that the particularities of the setting , in conjunction with the process-oriented creation of meaning via varying levels of physical and social interaction with the setting each play important roles, perhaps at different times, for visitors' relationships to places within the Park. The process of forming long-term relationships to places is highlighted as the common thread running through the interpretation. The value of the national park is seen to lie in these relationships, which are time and context dependent, not necessarily in the attributes of the park, many of which are generic to other protected areas in North America. ;The dissertation concluded with an evaluation of this interpretation based on these implications and insights and provided direction for further research to learn about the processes involved with forming relationships to protected places. (shrink)

In the West, it is widely believed that, since Africans lack an emotional experience with romanticism and transcendentalism, they do not possess the philosophical prerequisites necessary to protect wilderness. However, the West’s disdain for African systems of thought has precluded examination of customary African views of wilderness. Examination of ethnographic reports on Kenya’s Highland Bantu reveals a complex view of phenomena that the West generally associates with wilderness. For the Bantu, wilderness is an extension of human living space, and through (...) concerted social action rather than individual initiative, it is, or at least can be, dominated by society. Wildlife is unnatural and alienated from human society, which is natural. Because wilderness is, consequently, understood to be fearsome and hostile, it is not a place that can provide inspiration or self-actualization. Almost all forests have a special spiritual relationship with humankind, and some trees have a special relationship with God. Althoughtraditional Bantu thought is contrary to a concept of wilderness as conserved, managed space filled with tourists and recreators, it does embrace a concept of wilderness as wildlands. The Bantu have gone to considerable length to develop an approach to wilderness that minimizes individual contact while requiring association with wilderness as a social activity. Population growth and want of vocational opportunities continue to thrust Highland Bantu into wilderness as a fundamental and traditional survival technique. (shrink)

: Recently a number of influential academic environmentalists have spoken out against wilderness, most prominently William Cronon and J. Baird Callicott. This is odd, given that these writers seem to support two cornerstone positions of environmentalism as it has developed over the past twenty years: first, the view articulated within environmental ethics that wild, nonhuman nature, or at least some parts of it, has intrinsic or inherent value; second, the understanding developed within conservation biology that we have entered a period (...) of massive anthropogenic biodiversity loss and that landscape-level habitat preservation is essential for combating this. I argue here that Cronon and Callicott are wrong. In fact, an ethics of respect for nonhuman nature and an informed, scientific understanding of what is necessary to preserve it do strongly support increased wilderness preservation. (shrink)

Para los puritanos del siglo XVII, la costa este de América del Norte, las áreas silvestres o wilderness eran abominables y lacerantes. En el siglo XVIII, el predicador y teólogo puritano Jonathan Edwards inició el proceso de transformación de las áreas silvestres estadounidenses en un recurso estético y espiritual, un proceso que completó en el siglo XIX Ralph Waldo Emerson. Henry David Thoreau fue el primer estadounidense en recomendar la preservación de las áreas silvestres (wilderness) para propósitos de recreación trascendental (...) (soledad y una experiencia estética y espiritual). En el siglo XX, Theodore Roosevelt y Aldo Leopold abogaron por la preservación de las áreas silvestres para un tipo diferente de recreación (la caza, la pesca y la excursión) con el propósito de preservar el singular carácter estadounidense y sus instituciones. Entre estas tres concepciones históricas de la preservación de las áreas silvestres, la tercera constituye el mejor modelo para los ecosistemas de frontera del Cono Austral de América. (shrink)

Wilderness, for seventeenth-century Puritan colonists in America, was hideous and howling. In the eighteenth century, Puritan preacher and theologian, Jonathan Edwards, began the process of transforming the American wilderness into an aesthetic and spiritual resource, a process completed in the nineteenth century by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Henry David. Thoreau was the first American to recommend wilderness preservation for purposes of transcendental recreation (solitude, and aesthetic and spiritual experience). In the twentieth century, Theodore Roosevelt and Aldo Leopold advocated wilderness preservation for (...) a different kind of recreation (hunting, fishing, and primitive travel) in order to preserve the putatively unique American character and institutions. Of these three historic conceptions of wilderness preservation, the third is the best model for frontier ecosystems at the austral tip of the Americas. (shrink)

Over the last few years, the concept of “wilderness” has come under attack by environmentalists deeply committed to sustaining the natural world. Their criticisms are pointed and undeniably strong; moreover as I will argue, very similar critiques could be made of its putative counter-concept, “the city.” Yet in both cases, we need not simply reject the concepts themselves as incoherent; our challenge is rather to develop resources rich enough to show that and why they must stand in a constructive tension. (...) I will close by outlining the possibility and productivity of this development through hermeneutic reflections inspired by the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer. (shrink)

This chapter surveys and critically evaluates all the main arguments both for and against de-extinction. It presents a qualified defence of the claim that conservationists should embrace de-extinction. It ends with a list of do’s and don’ts for conservationist de-extinction projects.

Wilderness and wildness are not related isomorphically. Wildness is the broader category; all instances of wilderness express wildness while all instances of wildness do not express wilderness. There is more than a logical distinction between wildness and wilderness, and what begins as an analytic distinction ends as an ontological one. A more rhetorical representation of this confusion is captured by the notion of synecdoche, where, in this case, wilderness the narrower term is used for wildness the more expansive term. Although (...) this might seem obvious at first glance, I contend that the two concepts are often misused taken as synonyms thus equivocally, setting back the cause of conceptual clarity in environmental philosophy in general, and environmental restoration in particular. One notable outcome has been the unfortunate dichotomy between preservation and conservation resulting in policy choices that needlessly deny integrated alternatives by illicit exclusion. This paper will clarify this confusion by demonstrating instances where the two concepts have been systematically abused—conflated—and show how Henry David Thoreau saw them as importantly separable. Finally, a clearer understanding of the distinctions between the two concepts provides the basis for a viable program of restoration based on an ethics of place. (shrink)

This essay addresses how the idea of wilderness is a point of conversation between environmental philosophy and environmental theology. This topic is approached through a conversation with the environmental philosophy of Martin Drenthen. First, I discuss the respective aims of environmental philosophy and environmental theology. Second, I summarise the work of Drenthen on wilderness and otherness. Third, I compare this vision of environmental philosophy and a theological concept of Divine Otherness. Finally I sketch how this exploration is part of a (...) theological account of wilderness. Taking seriously Drenthen's view that wilderness is the otherness at the intersection of nature and culture, wilderness can be understood as indicative of Divine Otherness. Thus wilderness is a unique place where theological and philosophical thinking traverse and challenge each other. (shrink)

Dennis Danvers’ Wilderness, 1 published in 1991, is a work of popular North American fiction that centres upon a reworking of the traditional Western idea of the ‘werewolf’. In this novel Danvers transports the werewolf from the conventional role of villain to heroine, and draws attention to ecological issues intrinsically implicated with this mythological figure. More than simply a romantic fantasy and thriller, Wilderness is a novel that ex- plores the dynamism of the human-nature relationship and challenges certain anthropocentric assumptions (...) that continue to dominate contemporary Western thought. In this paper I will be engaging with Danvers’ Wilderness in order to investigate the ecological issues raised in this work and, more specifically, interrogate the construction of the human/nature binary. (shrink)

The application of constructivism to “nature” and “wilderness” is intellectually and politically objectionable. Despite a proclivity for examining the social underpinnings of representations, constructivists do not deconstruct their own rhetoric and assumptions; nor do they consider what socio-historical conditions support their perspective. Constructivists employ skewed metaphors to describe knowledge production about nature as though the loaded language use of constructivism is straightforward and neutral. They also implicitly rely on a humanist perspective about knowledge creation that privileges the cognitive sovereignty of (...) human subject over nature. Politically, the constructivist approach fails to take the scientific documentation of the biodiversity crisis seriously; it diverts attention toward discourses about the environmental predicament, rather than examining that predicament itself; and it indirectly cashes in on, and thus supports, human colonization of the Earth. (shrink)

In this paper, I investigate the possibility of a rich account of ecological restoration. Starting from the apparent one-sided focus on science and technology within the nature conservation community in Flanders, Belgium, I first present an intuitive case against a restorative practice solely based on science and technology. I then argue that what constitutes good restorative practice must be informed by the historical Arcadian tradition in which nature appreciation and subsequent conservation in the West have taken shape. However, the way (...) in which nature is perceived through that tradition seems highly external and stylized, and thus the question can be raised whether restorative practices based on this tradition can do nature itself any justice. Following the lead of Dutch sociologist Kris van Koppen, I argue that it can when the tradition is made flexible through a “conversation process” with nature. Such a conversation process can beachieved by engaging people in a sensual and bodily way in the restoration process. The result is that the richer account of the restorative practice contributes to the constitution of meaningful places that resist easy manipulation through science and technology. (shrink)

Most people believe that suffering is intrinsically bad. In conjunction with facts about our world and plausible moral principles, this yields a pro tanto obligation to reduce suffering. This is the intuitive starting point for the moral argument in favor of interventions to prevent wild animal suffering. If we accept the moral principle that we ought, pro tanto, to reduce the suffering of all sentient creatures, and we recognize the prevalence of suffering in the wild, then we seem committed to (...) the existence of such a pro tanto obligation. Of course, competing values such as the aesthetic, scientific or moral values of species, biodiversity, naturalness or wildness, might be relevant to the all-things-considered case for or against intervention. Still, many argue that, even if we were to give some weight to such values, no plausible theory could resist the conclusion that WAS is overridingly important. This article is concerned with large-scale interventions to prevent WAS and their tractability and the deep epistemic problem they raise. We concede that suffering gives us a reason to prevent it where it occurs, but we argue that the nature of ecosystems leaves us with no reason to predict that interventions would reduce, rather than exacerbate, suffering. We consider two interventions, based on gene editing technology, proposed as holding promise to prevent WAS; raise epistemic concerns about them; discuss their potential moral costs; and conclude by proposing a way forward: to justify interventions to prevent WAS, we need to develop models that predict the effects of interventions on biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and animals’ well-being. (shrink)

The concept of wildness not only plays a role in philosophical debates, but also in popular culture. Wild nature is often seen as a place outside the cultural sphere where one can still encounter instances of transcendence. Some writers and moviemakers contest the dominant romanticized view of wild nature by telling stories that somehow show a different harsher face of nature. In encounters with the wild and unruly, humans can sometimes experience the misfit between their well-ordered, human-centered, self-created world view (...) and the otherness of nature, and in doing so face, what Plumwood calls, “the view from the outside.” Three films—Gerry, Into the Wild, and Grizzly Man—deal with contemporary encounters with wildness. What these works have in common is the central theme of modern humans who are fascinated by wild nature and seek experiences unknown to those limited to the overly cultivated life of modern society. Another connecting theme, however, is that any idealization of wildness is in itself deeply problematic. All three films have fatal endings, which in turn fascinates the contemporary viewers. These films show, first, that wildness is conceived as a moral counterforce against the overly civilized world; and, second, that fascination with this wildness has itself become thoroughly reflexive, and. (shrink)

In moral debates about human’s relationship with nature, one often hears references to nature’s wildness. Apparently, postmodern city dwellers seem to be deeply fascinated by wild nature; for them, wildness somehow seems to have strong moral significance. How should we interpret this fascination? Moral meanings of nature come into play as soon as we start articulating our relationship with the world.In this process, we transform the neutrality of space into a meaningful place, that is, through interpretation we make mere environment (...) into a meaningful and inhabitable world that we can live in. However, there is something peculiar with experiences of wild nature that seems to go beyond this hermeneutical framework. The word ‘wilderness’ refers to the sphere that lies beyond culture, a part of the world that is not subject to human intervention and that is not our home.Does this mean that wildness cannot be part of a meaningful world? In this paper, I argue that Nietzsche’s account of nature can help elucidate today’s fascination with wilderness as a place of value beyond the sphere of human intervention. For Nietzsche, wild nature is a realm where moral valuations are out of order. In his work, however, we can discern a paradoxical moral concern with this wildness. Wildness is a critical moral concept that reminds us that our moral world of human meanings and goals ultimately rests on a much grander, all-encompassing natural world. Nietzsche’s concept of wildness acknowledges the value of that which cannot be morally appropriated. Wild nature confronts us with the limits of human valuing. Wildness as a concept thus introduces the ‘beyond’ of culture into the cultural arena of values. (shrink)

How can environmental philosophy benefit from Friedrich Nietzsche's radical critique of morality? In this paper, it is argued that Nietzsche's account of nature provides us with a challenging diagnosis of the modern crisis in our relationship with nature. Moreover, his interpretation of wildness can elucidate our concern with the value of wilderness as a place of value beyond the sphere of human intervention. For Nietzsche, wild nature is a realm where moral valuations are out of order. In his work, however, (...) we can discern a paradoxical moral concern with this wildness. Wildness is a critical moral concept that reminds us of the fact that our moral world of human meanings and goals ultimately rests on a much grander, all-encompassing natural world. Nietzsche's concept of wildness acknowledges the value of that which cannot be morally appropriated. Wild nature confronts us with the limits of human valuing. Wildness as a concept thus introduces the 'beyond' of culture into the cultural arena of values. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer a systematic inquiry into the significance of Nietzsche’s philosophy to environmental ethics. Nietzsche’s philosophy of nature is, I believe, relevant today because it makes explicit a fundamental ambiguity that is also characteristic for our current understanding of nature. I will show how the current debate between traditional environmental ethics and postmodern environmental philosophy can be interpreted as a symptom of this ambiguity. I argue that, in light of Nietzsche’s critique of morality, environmental ethics is a (...) highly paradoxical project. According to Nietzsche, each moral interpretation of nature implies a conceptual seizure of power over nature. On the other hand, Nietzsche argues, the concept of nature is indispensable in ethics because we have to interpret nature in order to have a meaningful relation with reality. I argue that awareness of this paradox opens a way for a form of respect for nature as radical otherness. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer a systematic inquiry into the significance of Nietzsche’s philosophy to environmental ethics. Nietzsche’s philosophy of nature is, I believe, relevant today because it makes explicit a fundamental ambiguity that is also characteristic of our current understanding of nature. I show how the current debate between traditional environmental ethics and postmodern environmental philosophycan be interpreted as a symptom of this ambiguity. I argue that, in light of Nietzsche’s critique of morality, environmental ethics is a highly paradoxical (...) project. According to Nietzsche, each moral interpretation of nature implies a conceptual seizure of power over nature. On the other hand, Nietzsche argues, the concept of nature is indispensable in ethics because we have to interpret nature in order to have a meaningful relation with reality. I show that awareness of this paradox opens a way for a form of respect for nature as radical otherness. (shrink)

This is the first collection of essays in which European and American philosophers explicitly think out their respective contributions and identities as environmental thinkers in the analytic and continental traditions. The American/European, as well as Analytic/Continental collaboration here bears fruit helpful for further theorizing and research. The essays group around three well-defined areas of questioning all focusing on the amelioration/management of environmentally, historically and traditionally diminished landscapes. The first part deals with differences between New World and the Old World perspectives (...) on nature and landscape restoration in general, the second focuses on the meaning of ecological restoration of cultural landscapes, and the third on the meaning of the wolf and of wildness. It does so in a way that the strengths of each philosophical school—continental and analytic—comes to the fore in order to supplement the other’s approach. This text is open to educated readers across all disciplines, particularly those interested in restoration/adaptation ecology, the cultural construction of place and landscape, the ongoing conversation about wilderness, the challenges posed to global environmental change. The text may also be a gold mine for doctoral students looking for dissertation projects in environmental philosophy that are inclusive of continental and analytic traditions. This text is rich in innovative approaches to the questions they raise that are reasonably well thought out. The fact that the essays in each section really do resonate with one another directly is also intellectually exciting and very helpful in working out the full dimensions of each question raised in the volume. (shrink)

This study examines some of the implications of guided wilderness trips against the theoretical framework of the sublime as Kant sets out in the Critique of Judgment. In particular, it focuses on the role of professional guides as providers of distancing protection from wild and dangerous nature—at the same time as they attempt to facilitate a possible aweinspiring encounter with nature in its wild otherness. This exercise of power by capital makes the guide an odd locus of power dynamics—at once (...) the site of complicity and resistance. Guides help generate revenue for industry, but they also may use their position to critique industry’s fable of human domination over nature. (shrink)

According to the theory of ecocentric morality, the environment and its many ecosystems are entitled to a direct moral standing, and not simply a standing derivative from human interests. J. Baird Callicott has offered two possible metaphysical foundations for ecocentrism that attempt to show that inherent goodness can apply to environmental collections and not just to individual agents. I argue that Callicott’s first theory fails because it relies on a problematic theory of moral sentiments and that his second theory fails (...) because it rests on an unsupported parallel between the breakdown of the subject-object dichotomy suggested by quantum theory and an alleged actualization of morality upon the interaction of environmental collections with consciousness. Finally, I argue that Callicott overrates the need for a metaphysical grounding of inherent value, and that the metaphysical question has little bearing on the normative issue of ecocentrism. (shrink)