Abstract

In reviewing the rise of environmental issues as a matter both of educational concern and philosophical interest, this chapter analyses the evolving motivations that have led to changes in their character and conceptualization – for example, from ‘nature study’ to ‘education for sustainable development’. The influence of ideas deriving from a range of sources such as Romanticism, the science of ecology, indigenous perspectives and rising concern over anthropogenic global environmental degradation are examined, and the significance of what is argued to be the underlying fundamental issue of our relationship with nature is explored. Debates concerning the character of nature, for example, whether it is properly regarded as socially constructed or transcendent, and the senses in which it properly is to be regarded as possessing its own integrity, agency and intrinsic value are described and their implications for education and the philosophy of education are explored. The discussion is illustrated by reference to some of the key ideas that currently feature in the literature of philosophy of environmental education, such as sustainability, ‘place’, anthropocentrism, eco-centrism, eco-justice, instrumentalism, post-humanism, post-ecologism and scientism. Also, reference will be made to the differing perspectives that inform the debates around these ideas, such as scientific/technocratic, systems thinking, socio-cultural, postmodern and phenomenological. The significance of the issues that arise for education and the character of philosophy of education more broadly are discussed, including contemporary claims that philosophy of education itself needs to be ‘ecologized’.